Naveen and Musa Bring WRC Form to Tanzania’s ARC Finale
Naveen Pulligilla and Musa Sherif enter the African championship’s final round second in ARC3, after winning in Rwanda and adding WRC3 podiums in Kenya and Paraguay. Duran Racing’s poster names the Indian pair for Tanzania, while the official calendar and the promotion differ on the event label and dates.
ViPeople Motorsport DeskPublished 13 min read
Promotional artwork: Duran Racing / Ashya Group
Audio articleListen to this storySerena (Enhanced) · English UK
A rally season is remembered in trophies, but it is built in the spaces between them: the long drive to a start, the note that arrives at exactly the right moment, the repair that keeps a car moving and the judgement to finish when the road asks for more than speed. Naveen Pulligilla and Musa Sherif arrive at Tanzania with all of that behind them, and a championship still waiting for its last answer.
Duran Racing’s promotional artwork names the Hyderabad driver and the Kasaragod co-driver for the coming African Rally Championship round. The pair have spent the past year moving between very different kinds of rally: an Indian national title campaign, the scale and intensity of the World Rally Championship, and a growing ARC3 programme across East Africa. Their story moves from one demanding rally to the next, with each result adding knowledge for the following start. It is a record of learning how to make a result survive the whole distance.
One event, two labels in the material available
There is an important detail to settle before the rally begins. The team-supplied poster calls the event the Serengeti Rally of Tanzania 2026 and promotes Morogoro from October 1 to 4. The FIA’s approved 2026 African championship calendar lists the final round as the Mkwawa Rally of Tanzania, scheduled for October 2 to 4. The printed event titles and date ranges differ. This preview keeps each description attached to its source and makes the discrepancy clear.
The distinction is useful for fans planning around the weekend. The artwork is the team’s promotion and clearly identifies the crew. The FIA calendar is the official reference for the championship event name and its sporting dates. Available sources do not explain why October 1 appears in the graphic while the FIA calendar lists October 2 to 4. The discrepancy remains visible, with no unsupported explanation added.
A domestic title opened the door to a wider campaign
The step into international rallying came after real work at home. The FMSCI’s 2026 INRC seeding list identifies Pulligilla as the 2025 INRC 3T champion. That is a concise line in an official document, but it describes a season of learning a car, reading Indian roads and turning speed into the kind of consistency that can carry across borders.
National and international competition measure different demands. A domestic title confirms that a crew can perform over a season. The WRC asks the same people to read unfamiliar stages, travel farther, work with new service structures and find a rhythm without the comfort of years of local memory. The results that followed have made the transition visible.
Musa brings an unusually long perspective from the right-hand seat. In April 2026, at the 49th South India Rally, the Madras Motor Sports Club recognised his 350th career rally. The number is more than a personal landmark. A co-driver carries the road in advance: pace notes, timing, route discipline and a calm voice that has to remain useful when the surface and the plan begin to change. That experience gives this partnership a deep reserve of rally knowledge.
Their first WRC start came at Safari Rally Kenya in 2025. The FIA’s final classification lists Pulligilla and Sherif 20th overall in their Fiesta Rally3, with a 40-second penalty recorded. The final classification settles the result and records a finish after that penalty.
Saudi Arabia turned progress into a world-stage breakthrough
Their 2025 WRC chapter brought a result with a place in Indian motorsport history. At Rally Saudi Arabia, Pulligilla and Sherif finished second in WRC3 and 26th overall in a Ford Fiesta Rally3. Autocar India reported that they became the first all-Indian driver and co-driver pairing to finish on a World Rally Championship podium. They held the class position through the final stages after moving into second on Friday.
That result mattered because it came from a complete competitive effort. A WRC3 crew is measured against the rally, the road and the other Rally3 entries on the same route. Saudi Arabia brought fast gravel and loose sand, and the official result placed an Indian pairing among the class leaders at the end of the event. The finish changed what could be imagined for the programme, while leaving the harder work of repeating it still to come.
Duran Racing’s Ford Fiesta Rally3 works through a wet gravel stage at Rally Chile in 2026. The photograph shows the team’s WRC setting, not the coming Tanzania event.Photograph: WRC / Red Bull Content Pool
Safari turned experience into another WRC3 podium
When the pair returned to Kenya in 2026, the Safari produced their second WRC3 podium. The FIA classified them third in the category and 24th overall. Safari rewards more than outright pace. It asks a crew to keep making sound decisions across a route that can punish a car and its occupants for treating every kilometre as a sprint.
Safari Rally Kenya remains a severe test of pace and mechanical sympathy. This local event photograph is context for the 2026 round, not a portrait of the Duran Racing crew.Photograph: FIA World Rally Championship
The same season also carried them back to the African championship. Their 2026 ARC3 record includes second place in Kenya and a class victory at the Rwanda Mountain Gorilla Rally. In Rwanda they finished fourth overall, a result that showed the different scale of the categories: a Rally3 crew can win its class while still sharing the general order with more powerful cars.
The FIA’s standings put Pulligilla and Sherif second in both the ARC3 drivers’ and co-drivers’ tables, on 66 points each before Tanzania. Nikhil Sachania and Deep Patel lead the corresponding lists on 99. The order makes the final round meaningful without pretending the result is already settled. Tanzania is the remaining opportunity to change the shape of the season.
Paraguay tested the crew’s ability to come back
In August, the WRC took the pair to the inaugural Rally del Paraguay. Their weekend did not unfold cleanly. WRC reported that Pulligilla crashed the Fiesta 28.1 kilometres into SS3 and failed to reach Friday’s overnight halt. The final FIA classification tells the rest of the story: the crew completed enough of the event to finish third in WRC3, despite a recorded 15-minute penalty, and 42nd overall.
That category podium made Paraguay their third WRC3 top-three finish, following Saudi Arabia and Kenya. The overall position and the class result belong beside each other. P42 is where the full event classification places them after the penalty. Third is where the WRC3 category places them. Leaving either one out would make the record less honest.
Naveen Pulligilla and Musa Sherif celebrate their third-place WRC3 finish at Rally Paraguay 2026.Photograph: WRC / Red Bull Content Pool
The WRC3 podium at Rally Paraguay brings the category’s leading crews together after the event.Photograph: WRC / Red Bull Content Pool
Chile was a reminder that momentum still has to be earned
Two weeks later came Rally Chile Bio Bío, another fast gravel challenge in the pair’s 2025 to 2026 WRC programme. They finished 12th in WRC3 and scored no championship points. The FIA table after Chile lists Pulligilla 13th in the drivers’ standings on 30 points, with the Kenya and Paraguay podiums contributing 15 each and Chile recorded as 12th.
A long international programme contains days that make a headline and days that simply add knowledge. Chile belongs to the second group. Their result ended the podium run and gave them another finish on unfamiliar stages, along with a fresh set of conditions to carry into the next event. That is the quieter work behind a campaign that looks, from a distance, like a string of high points.
Tanzania joins the story at the right moment
The coming ARC finale gives the crew a chance to carry its WRC experience into a different championship. They return to an African series where they have already won in Rwanda and climbed to second in the class standings, backed by three WRC3 podiums, the memory of a difficult Paraguay recovery and the discipline of a co-driver who has completed 350 rallies.
A rally preview cannot promise a result, and the organiser’s final entry list remains the authority for the start. This feature shows why the crew matters before the rally begins. The graphic places Naveen and Musa against a Duran Racing car and gives supporters a date to circle. Their sporting record gives that image its weight.
A strong outcome for the Indian crew would combine another podium with a clean, complete rally and a result that reflects the pace they have shown. A final ARC3 table that rewards a season of travel and work would complete the picture. If Tanzania asks them to be patient, precise and brave in the same weekend, the tools for that test are already in the story they bring with them.
From the gravel of Saudi Arabia to the dust of Kenya, the red roads of Paraguay and the forests of Chile, Pulligilla and Sherif have learned that every rally speaks in its own language. Tanzania will speak its own. The pair’s task is to listen carefully, keep the notes clear and let the finish line write the final sentence.
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