Coming off a commendable fifth-place overall finish at the European Rally Championship, with Craig Breen piloting the Hyundai i20 R5 rally machine, Team MRF Tyres has decided to once again compete as a factory team in the Indian National Rally Championship. The team, which had diverted its attention from the INRC in 2011, had since gone into the Asia Pacific Rally Championship arena, where it associated first with Mitsubishi and then Skoda to achieve three overall victories as well as multiple stage wins in its nine years of participation. Further, Team MRF was the first Indian team with an Indian driver to participate in the WRC2. Addiitonally, the brand had also been supporting privateers as well as the Mahindra Adventure team, which used to run on MRF Tyres till last year’s shift to JK Tyres.
And now, MRF is back with a full-fledged entry in the Indian National Rally Championship, running the Team Kadur (Karna Kadur with co-driver Nikhil Pai) R2-spec Volkswagen Polo. The car, supported of course by Volkswagen Motorsport, runs the 1-litre turbo-petrol engine (launched earlier this year), and will go up against the JK Tyre-sponsored Mahindra XUV300, in essence rekindling the famed MRF-JK rivalry, a mainstay of the rallying scene in the 1990s and early 2000s.
The 2020 INRC kicks off with the Rally of Arunachal, scheduled for December 16-17, and we have already spoken about the overwhelming number of entries received for it. And now, considering the 2020 INRC will not only have a tight schedule but a hard-fought one as well, has us on the literal edge of our seats!
