Dean Mascarenhas secures victory at Rally of Coimbatore

Dean Mascarenhas beat Karna Kadur to win the 2026 Rally of Coimbatore, which served as Round 2 of the Indian National Rally Championship. Sixty-four cars took part in the event, racing across 110.80 kilometres of mostly gravel paths.

Day One Lead

Kadur and his co-driver Musa Sherif led the field after the opening day by 5.6 seconds over Fabid Ahmer and Milen George. Mascarenhas and co-driver Gagan Karumbaiah started the weekend in third place, trailing the leaders by just over nine seconds.

Final Day Turnaround

Mascarenhas came back strongly on the final day, faster than Kadur on every stage starting from SS3 to win by a margin of 23.482 seconds. Jason Saldanha and Srinivas Murthy P V finished in third place to complete the podium. Fabid Ahmer stayed in contention for much of the race but had to drop out during the final stage.

Next Stop

The championship will move to Coorg next for the Robusta Rally, scheduled from November 20 to 22.