Calm before storm: Gill braced for tricky challenge
A well-established figure and a favourite going into the event, Gill is as excited as he was when he tried to drive his uncle Upkar Gill's car — when Upkar and Hari Singh, former rally drivers, had stepped out of the house — as a teenager. From that moment on, motorsport has been Gill's first and long-lasting love.
"This has been my life, and the excitement level has never dropped, and it will never drop," says Gill, sitting in front of the Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo, which is getting ready for the event on Friday. "When you love a sport or whatever sport you want to do, you choose to do it with utmost passion and 100% commitment. I still feel like I'm doing my first race. I'm still committed to win as much as I wanted to win when I was a young kid," he adds.
Gill had skipped the first two rounds of the FIA-APRC because of some logistical issues, but is not too worried about the miss as he still has a chance of qualifying for the final round in Japan. However, it is not going to be easy. The weather in Parapat is unpredictable, and the terrain — which goes through tea plantations — can be tricky as well. Gill, coming in with a reputation based on his past performances, only adds to the pressure.
The Arjuna awardee, however, is tranquil. "I tell myself to go hard or go home. That's my mantra in life. Because of my past races here and around this region, I've been looked upon to be on the podium, which is a good confidence-booster for me. This is how I take it. I don't take it as any pressure. I take it more like I've got a job to do and I must do it as best as possible," he says, before adding, "I think the bigger challenge is the terrain here rather than me adapting to the car. That is even bigger because it's so unpredictable that we can go out into the race with sun out, blaring heat, and in one hour, it could turn into a complete thunderstorm or a downpour and change the track conditions, completely flip it. Having said that, luckily, I have some good experience. Even today, when we went out for testing, you can see the car is full of mud. So, luckily we had a lot of mud in the morning, so we got a feel of how it's going to be, and then it dried out, so we had a feel of a little bit dry also."
As Gill, with Florian Barral as his co-driver, looks to end the seven-year wait and win back the APRC title, he is one of the five teams representing JK Tyre and Vamcy Merla Motorsports. Gill is delighted to see the support he and the other Indian drivers are getting from Vamcy Merla. "It's amazing to see him supporting so many people. Not only me, but he is supporting other drivers as well. I just wish that he sticks around with us as long as he wishes to, and we will do our job when it comes to winning for him," he signed off.
(The writer is in Indonesia at the invitation of Vamcy Merla Motorsports).
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