Davite drops to third place after Tanzania crush

ARC standingJassy Singh 48 points (Zam)Jas Mangat 40 (Uga)Davite Giancarlo 33 (Rwa)Mohammed Essa 25 (Zam)Eric Page 25 (Cot)Jan Habig 25 (Zim)Rwanda national champion Giancarlo Davite crushed his Mitsubishi Evo X on stage two of the Tanzania Puma Rally in Dar es Salaam over the weekend to drop to third position in the Africa Rally Championship.Davite was time barred after losing several minutes on the stage two due to alternator problem. He needed to finish the rally to maintain his lead at the top of the series with three more events remaining.A disappointed Davite said after the rally, “We never had enough time to heat up. We did first stage of 5km and before starting the second stage, the fan belt broke down.”“We lost a lot of time repairing before restarting again. We did two other stages and we were then communicated to that we were out of time. This is where our pursuit for Tanzania rally ended. We are very disappointed,” added the Italy-born rally driver.Uganda’s Jas Mangat won the rally after he clocked 2 hours 25.37 minutes to beat second placed Gerard Miller of Tanzania by about three minutes in the two-day race that also saw African champion Mohammed Essa drop out.Zambian youngster Jassy Singh claimed the third podium position to take the lead in the Africa championship with 48 points, 15 points ahead of Davite with four races to go.African rally champion Mohamed Essa’s chase for a second successive title, suffered a blow as he also crushed out on the second day.Essa rolled his car in stage three of the rally which saw only six cars of the 21 cars that started, finish the race.The Africa championship contenders now head to Nairobi for the KCB Kenya Safari Rally next month ahead of the Pearl of Africa in August. The Mountain Gorilla Rwanda Rally is scheduled for September and the championship will wind up with the Rally of Madagascar in November.

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Davite drops to third place after Tanzania crush