Lohitt goes 10 clear in AAM Malaysian 4×4 Rally Championship

Lohitt Urs of India, driving an Isuzu D-Max, recorded his second win in the AAM Malaysian 4×4 Rally Championship over the weekend. In denying Chong Wee Siang, who also drove a D-Max, Lohitt built a commanding 10-point lead over defending champion William Mei driving an (you guessed it) Isuzu D-Max. Mei, who came in fourth, now faces a tough battle to retain the crown he won last year, as there is only one more race to go.

Lohitt tastes victory again

Speaking after the race, Lohitt said, “I am very happy to have been able to get this win. Everyone had a very difficult day today and to have won in the last stage is really satisfying. The D-Max was absolutely fantastic. The performance kept us on pace throughout the event and we managed to push it even harder in the last stage to record our second win.”

Chong was the early pace setter, blazing to victory in the two opening stages, leaving Lohitt, Mei, and Teoh Kok Seng’s Isuzu Rodeo in his wake. On the contrary, championship hopeful Lim Seng Hai fell out of contention during the second stage, with a broken intercooler hose slowing his Mitsubishi Triton to a pedestrian speed, losing eight minutes in the process.

The race resumed the next day after heavy rain the night before. Drivers found the going in the 40km-long third stage extremely tough, with many cars having to extract themselves out of the ditch at one point or another. As William Mei said, “The stage was extremely slippery and narrow. There were many tricky junctions and once you made a mistake, it could be terminal.”

Eventual winner Lohitt had his moments too, recalling, “We went wide in one of the corners and we ended up sliding down a slippery slope. Thankfully a tree stopped us from going all the way down the hill. It looked like our rally was over then as we were there for a good ten minutes trying to extricate ourselves. Eventually we decided to try using the Touch-On-The-Fly to select 4L and charged our way back onto the road.”

For Lim Seng Hai, the woes in his Triton continued, with suspension problems seriously hindering his progress. Chong was able to keep himself on course, but could do nothing about Lohitt’s storm to victory in the fourth stage, as the Mysore-born driver overturned a 2:19 time deficit to register victory by a margin of 1:35. Understandably ecstatic over his win, Lohitt remarked, “The race was fantastic throughout the weekend. We had to push very hard to get our second win and the car and the team really performed well despite the rough and difficult conditions.”

Lohitt powers to victory.

Though denied at the last, Chong took defeat in his stride, saying, “Second is really not too bad. The win will come one day so I will just bide my time. We made some mistakes today. The roads were tricky and we took some wrong turns so we lost a lot of time. But it’s OK. We drove well throughout the event and that’s more important to me. The car was also fantastic. The D-Max did not give us any problems at all and the performance was very good. We clearly had the fastest car in the field but more importantly, the car was tough and took the rough roads well.”

Coming in third behind Chong was Teoh Kok Seng’s Isuzu Rodeo, while William Mei finished fourth, after slipping off the road in the third stage. “Some of these corners were incredibly tricky. They look wide but once you get off line, the ditches just suck you in,” he said.

Teoh’s Rodeo mixing it with the more powerful D-Maxes.

KON