Indian driver Gaurav Gill has won the APRC Rally of Hokkaido to setup a three-way fight for the Asia Pacific Rally Championship driver’s title as the series heads to the final round in China early November.

The final leg was a classic battle as Gill, held off his team-mate Katsu Taguchi, while both MRF drivers were being chased down by Alister McRae in the super quick Proton Satria S2000 car.

McRae drove like a demon to pull to within 8 seconds of Taguchi, but ran out of time on the shorter second leg to reel in the Japanese driver and had to settle for third place. The Scotsmen is now leading the Asia Pacific title fight, 2 points in front of his Proton team-mate Chris Atkinson.

Rifat Sungkar bought his Pertamina-Cusco Mitsubishi home 4th place in the drivers points, but with only 39 points available for the next event the Indonesian is out of the title fight.

The two-wheel drive class was won by Malaysian Karamjit Singh, while Singh’s young team-mate Akira Bamba drove hard to clinch the Asia Pacific Junior Cup title.

The overall event was won by Japanese Toshi Arai in new R4 spec’d Subaru Impreza, the hard charging former Production world champion was a big favourite with the  many fans that lined the route.