5 months ago
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Indian rally racing touched a historical milestone arsenic Hyderabad’s Naveen Puligilla and co-driver Musa Sherif became the archetypal brace from the state to decorativeness connected the podium successful a World Rally Championship lawsuit successful Jeddah.
Competing successful the WRC3 class astatine the Saudi Arabia Rally 2025, Puligilla and Sherif finished 2nd successful their class.
According to provisional results, the duo completed the gruelling rally successful a clip of 4 hours, 28 minutes and 58.7 seconds, finishing 26th wide among 41 cars.
Their Ford Fiesta Rally3, prepared by Africa Eco Sports of Nairobi, Kenya, was conscionable 1 infinitesimal 14.2 seconds down the adjacent WRC3 competitor, giving them a comfy borderline up of the remainder of their class.
This accomplishment stood retired amid a beardown tract dominated by cutting-edge Rally 1 and Rally 2 cars from mill teams similar Hyundai, Toyota, and M-Sport Ford.
This marks the archetypal clip an Indian operator and co-driver brace claimed a podium spot successful immoderate WRC category.
Puligilla and Sherif demonstrated seamless teamwork connected immoderate of the rally’s most-challenging terrains, which included accelerated gravel roads, shifting soil dunes, and breached godforsaken tracks implicit 17 demanding peculiar stages.
For Puligilla, this podium caps disconnected an awesome season.
The Hyderabad operator showed accordant maturation passim the year, with a podium decorativeness astatine the Tanzania Rally and a class triumph astatine India’s National Rally Championship’s Robusta Rally successful Kodagu.
"This podium means acold much than conscionable a trophy. It proves that Indian crews tin vie astatine the highest level connected the satellite stage,” said Puligilla.
