Desert Storm 2016 - Suresh Rana, CS Santosh Tame The Storm

The 14th edition of Desert Storm has concluded after grueling 6 legs across the Thar desert.  Suresh Rana alongside his co-driver Ashwin Naik have won the extreme category. In Moto class Indian Dakar hero CS Santosh emerged on top. Crews had to tackle total of six legs covering over 2000 km from Noida to Jodhpur.

But it was Abhishek Mishra who made a good start by taking lead from leg one and building a healthy lead over Rana despite power steering failure on Leg three. But unfortunately on leg five Mishra rolled his Vitara and was out of rally. Car sustained heavy damage but he and his co-driver PV Srinivas Murthy were safe.

This incident put Rana in the lead and he finished strongly to cross the line 70 minutes ahead of his nearest rival Amanpreet Ahluwalia. Niju Padia finished third and was alo winner of his sub-class. Jasmohan Singh and S Bajaj rounded off the top five position. Another major incident was Lhakpa Tsering's Polaris was in flames and burnt to ashes due to fuel pump failure.

In the Moto class hot favorite CS Santosh lead from start to finish and took a commanding win. But his lead was in danger when he received a time penalty of one hour on leg four. But he rode brilliantly and cross the line eight minutes clear of chasing pack. 2015 Raid de Himalaya winner Aravind KP finished second in his TVS RTR 450. R Nataraj was further hour down and was in the podium. Jes David and Tanveer Abdul Wahid completed top five spots. Austrian rider Rene Steinhart finished seventh after his Leg 3 problems. He showed good pace in the final legs of the rally. Pratap took the victory in Explore class.

Final Classification Extreme Cass

Final Classification Moto Class

1	CS Santosh	11hr19m28s
2	Aravind KP	11hr28m06s
3	R Nataraj	12hr25m30s
4	Jes David	1hhr07m11s
5	Tanveer Abdul Wahid	14hr36m11s
6	Ashwini Kataria	14hr57m41s
7	Rene Steinhart	15hr06m21s
8	Rajveer Singh Tomar	15hr40m42s
9	Virendra Waghela	15hr49m41s
10	Ashish Raorane	15hr55m41s

It was some hot action across the desert, Thats all for now, Until then Happy Rallying!