After leading the Asia Cross Country Rally overall for the first two legs, Natthaphon Angritthanon is in trouble. A suspension problem struck in Monday’s stage, sending him tumbling out of the top ten.

Angritthanon had set the tone early when he won Stage 1 on Saturday, and continued to hold the top spot with a third the next day. However, things took a turn in Stage 3 when the left front A-arm on his Toyota Hilux Revo broke. He was able to repair it enough to reach the finish albeit with a time of 5:18:01, ranking him 30th overall and 19th for T1D.

Consequently, he fell out of the top ten overall down to 11th and 1:35:45 behind new leader Chayapon Yotha. Fortunately, his Toyota Gazoo Racing Thailand colleague Mana Pornsiricherd picked up where he left off and won the stage.

Pornsiricherd, last year’s AXCR champion, beat the Isuzu D-Max of Suwat Limjirapinya by five minutes. However, the latter still maintains a comfortable grip on second in the overall with 12 minutes on Pornsiricherd.

TGR’s Indonesian allies, on the other hand, had a pretty bad case of the Mondays. Stage 2 victor Tubagus Adhi Moerinsyahdi careened off the road as he approached a water crossing and slid down the mud, losing his left front driveshaft. After being towed back up, Adhi finished with only three working wheels in 29th. His teammate Ikuo Hanawa, who rolled on Sunday, didn’t even get to start the Selective Section due to a fuel leak on the liaison.

Yotha finished third in the stage, just missing out on the runner-up spot by six seconds, and inherited the overall lead. He leads Limjirapinya by 11:40.

“I’d like to thank my mechanics and team,” Yotha stated. “It was a difficult course, but thanks to the sturdy car they prepared for me, I was able to complete it. I hope to maintain a good pace in the second half of the race.”

On the other hand, his Ralliart colleague Katsuhiko Taguchi experienced a right suspension failure just 29 kilometers into the stage. Kazuto Koide, armed with spare parts, caught up with him at the halfway mark. It took roughly ten minutes to replace the driveshaft and get Taguchi back out on track.

Taguchi ultimately finished 25th overall and 14th in T1D. Koide also had to make repairs to his Triton.

“It was truly a miracle that my damaged car was repaired back to normal,” Koide commented. “It’s only thanks to the teamwork of the engineers, mechanics, and everyone else that Chayapon is in the overall lead overall and that we were able to get Taguchi’s car to perfect condition.”

With Stage 4 canceled, TGR and Ralliart will spend Tuesday making further repairs and ironing out any other kinks.

Stage 3 winners

Auto

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1D	1	101	Mana Pornsiricherd	Toyota Gazoo Racing Thailand	3:32:45
T1G	19	146	Tomohiro Wada	Showa Garage Racing	4:24:37
T1E	34	127	Chen Ho-Huang	i Taiwan Rally Team	10:03:00
T2A-D	4	142	Bailey Cole	Feeliq Innovation Motorsport	3:41:34
T2D	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A	DNF

Moto

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
M1	4	22	Takuya Izumoto	JISOK-RR	4:16:28
M2	1	46	Jakkrit Chawtale	JC Dirt Shop	3:36:12
M3	8	45	Khomsan Udomteekasiri	Ark Bar Samui	4:50:37
Sidecar	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A	DNF

Leaders after Stage 3

Auto

Class	Overall	Number	Driver	Team	Total Time
T1D	1	112	Chayapon Yotha	Team Mitsubishi Ralliart	9:41:26
T1G	22	116	Memen Harianto	Indonesia Cross Country Rally Team	13:46:46
T1E	36	127	Chen Ho-Huang	i Taiwan Rally Team	29:33:00
T2A-D	5	142	Bailey Cole	Feeliq Innovation Motorsport	10:23:03
T2D	31	123	Yuichi Iijima	SRS-Osaka Welport Rally Team	23:27:45

Moto

Class	Overall	Number	Rider	Team	Total Time
M1	4	22	Takuya Izumoto	JISOK-RR	12:29:44
M2	1	16	Yoshio Ikemachi	Team Musashi International	10:45:11
M3	6	45	Khomsan Udomteekasiri	Ark Bar Samui	13:57:10
Sidecar	DNF	N/A	No Finishers	N/A	42:30:00

Featured image credit: Nam Vũ