At the end of day 1 Indian driver driver Gaurav Gill leads APRC Rally of Indonesia by 15 seconds ahead of 2nd place Cody Crocker. In third is Katsu Taguchi just over 1 minute behind Crocker.
All driver had their problems on day 1, Crocker loosing time in the first run through the stages with a down on power engine, then in the afternoon with power restored a wrong choice of tyres slowed the current APRC champion.
Taguchi punctured in Stage 3 dropping 2 minutes and Rifat Sungkar had the same problem in the same stage. Scott Pedder hit a dry creek bed in 4th gear at near full speed, splitting a brake line, bending a cross member and spending the rest of the day limping through the stages until end of the service when the car could be renewed.
Through it Gill was consistently fast and his problems were confined to a broken gearbox mount that slowed him slightly in the afternoon, but otherwise his day was trouble free. His lead is slender however and both Crocker and Taguchi will have the young Indian in their sights on day 2. It will be interesting to see how Gill responds to the pressure of his more experienced rivals.