Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], April 26 (ANI): The reigning national champion Karna Kadur along with co-driver Musa Sherif continued their dominance, topping four of the five special stages on Saturday in the International Automobile Federation (FIA) Asia Pacific Rally Championship (APRC) India Round which is being held here at the Madras International Circuit.

Kadur and Sherif, representing Arka Motorsports, increased their overnight lead on defending APRC winners and teammates Harkrishan Wadia and Kunal Kashyap. They topped today's first stage, the short 4.9km Special Stage (SS) 3, and followed up by setting the quickest time in the 19k.2km in SS2, as per a press release from FIA Asia Pacific Rally Championship.

However, the pair lost 5.9 seconds in SS3, but that did not matter much in the end, as Karna Kadur switched up gears and took a huge lead in the last two stages, which were the Avisa stage and the Track stage, to top the time sheets on the penultimate day of the competition.

Wadia and Kashyap finished the day in second place, followed by two-time National champion Amittrajit Ghosh and co-driver Ashwin Naik, also of Arka Motorsports, finished in third place. Despite having issues with the fuel pump, Ghosh, who was trailing in sixth place, bounced back to finish third at the end of the day. Incidentally, the top four places on the leaderboard belong to drivers from Arka Motorsports.

The APRC will conclude tomorrow with five more special stages, at the end of which the winner will be decided.

Results (Saturday):

FIA APRC/Overall

1. Karna Kadur/ Musa Sherif (Arka Motorsports) (01:05:25.4 s)

2. Harkrishan Wadia/ Kunal Kashyap (Arka Motorsports) (01:06:34.2 s)

3. Amittrajit Ghosh/ Ashwin Naik (Arka Motorsports) (01:06:39.8 s)

4. Philippos Matthai/ Harish KN (Arka Motorsports) (01:06:51.3 s)

5. Fabid Ahmer/ Milen George (Chettinad Sporting) (01:06:56.1 s). (ANI)