Aabhishek Mishra and Adrian Metge solidify lead, Gill slips to eighth position

Samrat Yadav (driving Toyota Fortuner) and Lhapka Tsering (driving Polaris ATV) jumped dramatically up the leaderboard to climb to the second and fourth position after SS6 of the Desert Storm here Friday.

Team Sparky Garage's Aabhishek Mishra (driving Maruti Suzuki Vitara) held on to his lead.

Samrat (with co-driver Kunal Kashyap; 03:00:44) and Tsering (co-driver Venu Rameshkumar; 02:53:46) recorded some of the best timings of the morning in the Extreme Category to be snapping on Mishra's heels.

They even left APRC champion and strong contender Gaurav Gill of Team Mahindra in the shade, who slipped from his overnight second position to languish in the eighth position. Gaurav had a rough day, taking as much as 04:09:26 to complete the morning stage.

Defending champion Mishra continued to show his class, taking the least time (02:49:49) to conquer the stage and stay ahead of the field. His Sparky teammate Capt AVS Gill (Diwakar Kalia) too was in top form, moving up one place to be on ...