A great drive from fromer APRC competitor Naren Kumar has seen him capture 11th 10th place in the Production WRC event at the Rally of Greece.

The first Indian to contest a world rally event, Naren and co-driver Nicky Beech overcame a variety of problems with their brand-new Tomi Makinen-prepared Subaru WRX to move up the leaderboard throughout three days of tough conditions on the Greek roads.

Although originally classified in 11th place, Naren was elevated to 10th following the disqualification of 2nd-placed Martin Rauam, who was found to have used non-homologated front disc brakes.

The 34-year-old Indian champ commented after the event, “It would have been an amazing debut had I made a cut into the top-10. But my car faced so many problems. On the second day we had trouble in the turbo and during the final day we had an oil leak from the engine”.

The event, won by Andreas Aigner, took its toll on the PWRC field, including defending champ Toshi Arai and early leader Nasser Al-Attiyah who were both forced to retire with suspension damage. Although 16 minutes behind Aigner, just managing to complete the event in a brand-new car, new team and new co-driver was a solid result for Team Sidvin in its first PWRC event. “The team management is happy that we completed the rally as it is tough here”.

Naren and Team Sidvin will now have two weeks to re-group and prepare their car for Rally Turkey, which starts on June 13.

Sources: asianage.com, thehindu.com
Photos courtesy of www.teamsidvin.com