Impressive Naren eighth in Japan

By Our Correspondent

Chennai

Oct. 31: India’s Naren Kumar had an impressive outing on the opening day of the World Rally Championship in Sapporo, Japan, on Friday. At the end of the 10th stage, Naren was running eighth with a timing of 46m:35.4s.

The opening day’s proceedings were shortened and were punctuated by three cancelled stages. Only four of the planned eight countryside tests were run as scheduled, the others cancelled as a result of snowy weather, and a crash involving Stobart driver Francois Duval.

The Team Sidvin India driver started off brilliantly with a third place finish in the opening stage of the day.

Naren will begin Saturday’s competition 45seconds behind the leader — 18-year old Russian Evgeniy Novikov.

Naren said:

"The tyres were cold and I skidded and hit a concrete block in SS10 and lost some time. I am confident of making amends tomorrow.

"The car is working very well as we had predicted and the engine and the suspension are very well suited to my style of driving. I will try and extract every bit I can from the car tomorrow, this is the first day and we have two more long days to go and I am keeping my fingers crossed," said Naren.

In the WRC, BP Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen is on top of the timesheets, followed by Subaru WRT Impreza of Chris Atkinson and Jari-Matti Latvala of BP Ford Abu Dhabi.