Gianca team of Giancarlo Davite and his navigator Sylvia Vindevogel has confirmed that they will keep their Subaru Impreza N10 aka ‘Umuleti’ in the final round on this year’s African Rally Championship calendar in Madagascar due next month.
Davite and his long time female co-driver powered ‘Umuleti’ to the 2013 Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally victory over the weekend.
The duo dumped their Mitsubishi EVO X aka ‘Miss X’ for the weekend rally in favour of ‘Umuleti’ and it paid off in the best way. They had registered mixed results in ‘Miss X’ in the first six rounds on the ARC calendar.
After the titght rally, a happy Vindevogel told Times Sport, “Now, I can speak, my heart is full of joy. Giancarlo Davite is a happy driver again.”
“I dedicate this win to our fans in Rwanda and across Africa,” added Rwanda national rally championship leading navigator.
Vindevogel is ranked fourth on the Africa rally championship navigators’ standings with 36 points.
On the fact that the victory puts them back into contention for the 2013 Africa Rally Championship title, albeit with an outside chance, she said, “It’s going to be hot in Madagascar (the final round) but we believe the car (Umuleti ) will not let us down as Miss X did in the earlier rounds.”
Davite and Vindevogel won their second Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally title, adding to their sucess back in 2009.
Elefter Mitraros, who won last year’s edition finished second while Christakis Fitidis, who races on a Ugandan license, settled for third.
With the victory, Davite is back in the race for the African title, however, the Italy-born speedster, who is third with 58 points, will have to pray that the two main contenders, Jas Mangat of Uganda (83 points) and Zambia’s Jassy Singh (71 points) don’t finish the Madagascar rally due in October.
Title favourite Mangat crushed on the CS11 end in Kajevuba, while Singh finished fourth and scored 18 precious points to keep his title hopes alive.
By Bonnie Mugabe,The New Times