Achintya mehrotra

Asian Auto Gymkhana Championship: New Delhi’s Achintya Mehrotra fetched a gold medal while Tarushi Vikram from Chikmagaluru marked her international debut for India with a silver medal finish in the Asian Auto Gymkhana Championship, which was run concurrently with the FIA Asia-Pacific Motorsport Championship 2025, at the Bandaragama sports complex here on Saturday.

The 35-year-old Mehrotra came out on top in a very strong field, and after surviving a shootout that was ordered on a technicality, besides a two-second penalty for knocking down a cone. Eventually, he pipped Kyrgyzstan’s Vedenev Alexey by two-tenths of a second in a tense finish.

“I had done a 1:10 for the circuit in the previous outing, but improved to 1:05 in the shootout. However, I knocked a cone down in the process, and I knew I would receive a two-second penalty. I didn’t ease off and focused on maintaining my pace and flow. Eventually, it helped me beat Vedenev by a narrow margin. Absolutely thrilled to win a gold medal,” said Mehrotra, whose compatriot Prateek Dalal from Bahadurgarh (Haryana) finished 13th.