Chennai, April 14 (Inditop.com) Team MRF will field a two-car team to be driven by National champion Gaurav Gill and Japanese ace Katsuhiko Taguchi in the 2010 Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC).
Gill will have the experienced Glen Macneall of New Zealand as his co-driver while Australian Chris Murphy will partner Taguchi, a former APRC champion. Both the MRF entries will be in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 10 car, according to a press release from the Chennai-based tyre manufacturer.
The first of the seven rounds is scheduled to be run at Johor Bahru, Malaysia on April 23-25. MRF have opted out of the New Caledonia round, but will participate in the other rallies in Japan (May 22-23), New Zealand (July 3-4), Australia (July 31-Aug 1), Indonesia (Sep 25-26) and China (Nov 6-7).
The quest for the APRC title will be fairly competitive this year. Although Subaru driver Cody Crocker will not be competing this year, Team MRF will be up against the more formidable Subaru World Rally Championship driver Chris Atkinson who was fairly successful in recent WRC.
Atkinson will have Stephane Prevot as his co-driver and will be driving a Proton Satria S2000 for the Proton R3 Team. The second car of the Proton R3 team will be driven by Alistair McRae with co-driver Bill Hayes.
Also in the fray is the experienced Japanese driver Hiroshi Yanagisawa with Yoshimara Nakahara as his co-driver in a Mitsubishi Evolution-10 for the Cusco team while Indonesian Rifat Sungkar will be the lone Subaru Impreza WRX driver representing the Pertamina Oil Team from Indonesia.
The APRC 2010 marks the introduction of the Super 2000 cars against the Group N4 cars in the series. The Super 2000 class, introduced by FIA to encourage more manufacturers, is fully modified production car without the turbo charger for the APRC.
The Group N4 cars are unmodified cars which will have a disadvantage over the S2000 Proton Satria. However, the Group N4 cars will be permitted to use a larger restricter which should give the cars a 30-plus BHP advantage.
rounak