Source: Mumbai News Online

All did not go as expected with Naren Kumar in the Rally of Turkey. In fact, if the 33-year-old looks back at his run in and around Antalya he would agree there were several ‘signs’ that suggested he would have a premature end.

Saturday saw Naren retire even before ‘technically competing and completing a stage.

In fact, Stage 10, an uphill Special Stage run in Chimera, the first of Day Two seven leg programme, was quite dramatic. With the WRC cars and three-quarters of P-WRC field having completed their run, Red Bull Rallye Team’s Bernardo Souza ran down a spectator less than a kilometre into the stage.

Grim as it seemed, Naren, who was to be next on the stage was held up and went on to learn that the stage was aborted thereafter.

It meant that Naren along with three other P-WRC entrants were handed the time of the slowest driver of the stage. For the record, Armindo Araujo (Miguel Ramalho) of Ralliart Italy with 13:37.02s was the slowest.

Having moved through the stage, Naren during the transport run from Chimera to Silyon – another hill run – to his misfortune broke his fuel sump protector and to add to his misfortune his fuel tank was damaged and so was his fuel return points which forced him to park the car once and for all.

The problem seemed to be recurring problem considering that after Day 1 the team mechanics spent three hours dealing with the situation to enable a restart.

Team Sidvin officials informed that, "we were dealing with a similar situation last night, but since this was serious which could mean harm to both driver and co-driver we decided to call it quits."

While Naren’s exit was ‘unexpected’, his run on Day 1 needs to be appreciated since he dealt with two mechanical problems and a slight electrical glitch to labour home in 13th position (P-WRC) on Friday.

Photos courtesy www.teamsidvin.com