Zambia International Rally results

1. Mohammed Essa 02:55:042. Jassy Singh +08:273. Jamie Whyte +15:40FOR a third year running, Rwanda’s Davite Giancarlo failed to finish the Puma Energy Zambia International Rally after his Subaru Impreza N11 developed drive-shaft problems with six sections to go on the final day of the race.He also crashed out of the same race while in comfortable positions in 2010 and 2011. In 2010, his car suffered brake failure while gearbox problems were to blame for last year’s early exit.The Rwandan driver, who was on the verge of winning the rally after coming out on top on day two (Saturday), retired on Sunday with a broken driveshaft in SS12. His technical team tried in vain to fix the problem.Giancarlo had taken over the rally’s overall lead from Zambia’s Mohammed Essa on the drama packed last stage of day two of the 590km in Chisamba.The Italy-born ace took advantage of Essa, who lost five minutes trying to figure out why his Prodrive-built Madison/Puma Subaru Impreza N12B slowed down a few minutes away from the end of the 16.40km Chongera stage 11.Essa had three stages Chartonel (24.67km), Bull (15.56km) and Waterfall (7.45km) each to be run twice to wipe out Giancarlo’s lead or else and if the order remained unchanged even on the last day, then Giancarlo would have gone on top of the FIA African Rally Championship (ARC) by three points.However, his retirement helped Essa to scoop the rally to open up a 27-point lead in the eight-edition FIA African Rally Championship (ARC). Giancarlo remains on 22 points.Essa increases his season tally to 52 points after his triumph, in the third round of this year’s African championship after the Toyota Zimbabwe Challenge and the Sasol Rally South Africa held in March and April respectively.Next up for the competitors is the Kenyan Safari Rally.