TVS Racing’s Adrien Metge of France dominated the first two days of the Desert Storm Rally 2019 and finished day two as the unquestioned leader in the Moto Category, with a total time of 02:03:34 hours after SS 1 and 2 on Wednesday and SS4 on Thursday.
Chasing him was C.S. Santosh of Hero Motorsports (02:11:20) and Abdul Wahid Tanveer, also of TVS Racing.
Earlier, Metge had dominated Stage 1 to register a win amidst strong competition. The French rider clocked good speeds from the start and was able to navigate with ease despite the scorching heat of the Thar Desert.
The stage started at 1.30 p.m. and concluded close to evening with the teams covering a stretch of 80km around the sandy terrain of Bikaner.
Aishwarya Pissay manoeuvred smoothly through the sandy terrain with RTR450 but faced a 20-minute penalty resulting in a P23 finish. It was later found that it was a technical error and the penalty was removed, moving her to seventh overall at the end of day two.
In Group B (up to 250cc category), TVS Racing’s Sachin was at P2 while Imran had to retire due to technical reasons after day one.
In the four-wheeler category, holder Aabhishek Mishra gave a glimpse of his vast experience as he braved the blazing conditions to surge into the lead after SS4 in the Extreme category on Thursday.
The Team Sparky’s Garage star, with Srikanth Gowda as co-driver, made the most of overnight leader Sunny Sidhu’s misfortune in the Extreme category to wrest back the initiative with a total time of 03:22:46 hours after the morning stage.
Mahindra Adventure’s Gaurav Gill (Musa Sherif), who was fourth after day one, made his move in the morning and jumped to second. He recorded a remarkable timing of 01:10:11 in SS4 — a cumulative tally of 03:25:46 — just three minutes off the leader.