Osian Pryce has secured his second consecutive MSA British Rally Championship victory with a hard-fought success on the Trackrod Rally Yorkshire, the penultimate round of the 2013 campaign.
The Welshman won last time out on the Todds Leap Rally Northern Ireland, and had high hopes for success in Yorkshire after marginally missing out on victory last year, with Tom Cave denying him victory by just 0.1 seconds following a tie at the end of the event.
The event’s last appearance on the BRC calendar for the foreseeable future started with two stages in the darkness on Friday night, with Pryce and championship leader Jukka Korhonen sharing the spoils, the former taking a mere 0.9 seconds lead into the main running on Saturday.
The opening stage in the morning saw Cave and Alistair Fisher set the equal fastest time, setting their intentions to make it much more than a two car battle for victory.
Fisher and Cave were the fastest two once again on SS4, but Korhonen’s third fastest time was enough to give him the event lead from Pryce. The Finn, who is aiming to become the first Finnish BRC champion since 2000, edged the stage win from Cave on SS5, taking a chunk of time out of Pryce in the process to build an event lead of over five seconds.
The lead was short-lived however, with a superb run from Pryce in SS6 seeing him take the stage win and with it a narrow 0.7 second lead heading into the final stage of the event.
Korhonen Was Locked In A Fierce Duel With Pryce – Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Both drivers headed into the ‘Dably‘ test knowing they needed to put it all on the line to take victory, however the event took a dramatic turn as Korhonen stalled on the line, losing himself nearly ten seconds.
Despite the 29 year old’s best efforts, he couldn’t recoup the time, with a sincillating performance from Pryce, who was oblivious to Korhonen’s problems, giving him the stage win by six seconds and with it the event victory.
“The competition has been fantastic but I’m glad it’s over,” said the 20 year old. “We knew we just had to go for it after being so close last year. I’m not sure how we did it though, because he (Korhonen) has been trying really hard too. It has been a great experience.”
Korhonen managed to maintain second at the finish, ending up 3.2 seconds ahead of Fisher, with Cave a further 16.5 seconds adrift in a closely-fought event.
Despite his two victories, Pryce heads to the final round of the season next month, Rallye Sunseeker, unable to overhaul Korhonen at the top of the championship standings. Fisher and Cave can still win the title, however Korhonen is clear favourite, needing just a top ten finish or so to take the crown.
Last year’s Rallye Sunseeker winner Mark Donnelly held fourth overall overnight, and after Cave took the place with his opening stage win, the reigning Pirelli Star Driver held a comfortable fifth for the remainder of the event.
A tight battle for sixth between John MacCrone and Jonny Greer in their Citroen DS3 R3’s eventually went the way of MacCrone by just 0.2 seconds, with Callum Black continuing the Citroen domination in eighth.
McKenna Took The RallyTwo Honours – Credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Daniel McKenna meanwhile took his fourth straight BRC RallyTwo victory after a hard-fought victory in Yorkshire. After early challenger, BRC returnee Timmy Catchcart, crashed out on SS2, McKenna found his main challenge coming once again from Jon Armstrong and main title rival Steve Roklands.
Four stages down, McKenna led the class by fourteen seconds, but a determined Rokland blitzed SS5 to overhaul Armstrong and close to within just a tenth of a second of McKenna. The leader rallied though and stretched his advantage out over the final two stages to take the win and tenth overall, with a blinder on the last stage for Armstrong seeing him sneak second in class by just 0.1 seconds.
The weekend’s Pirelli Star Driver nomination went the way of Alex Parpottas, the Ford Fiesta R2 pilot impressing the judges with a mature drive to fourth in the RallyTwo class.
Full rally results can be found here: http://results.djames.org.uk/results/index.php?EventID=266&e=266
|
Position |
Driver |
Co-Driver |
Car |
Time |
Gap |
|
1 |
Osian Pryce |
Dale Furniss |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:01:50.3 |
|
|
2 |
Jukka Korhonen |
Marko Salminen |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:02:00.2 |
+ 0:00:09.9 |
|
3 |
Alistair Fisher |
Gordon Noble |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:02:03.4 |
+ 0:00:13.1 |
|
4 |
Tom Cave |
Ieuan Thomas |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:02:19.9 |
+ 0:00:29.6 |
|
5 |
Mark Donnelly |
Dai Roberts |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:02:42.1 |
+ 0:00:51.8 |
|
6 |
John MacCrone |
Phil Pugh |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:03:27.5 |
+ 0:01:37.2 |
|
7 |
Jonny Greer |
Kirsty Riddick |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:03:27.7 |
+ 0:01:37.4 |
|
8 |
Callum Black |
James Morgan |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:04:24.0 |
+ 0:02:33.7 |
|
9 |
James Grint |
Anthony Litchfield |
Citroen DS3 R3 |
1:05:06.2 |
+ 0:03:15.9 |
|
10 |
Daniel McKenna |
Arthur Kierans |
Ford Fiesta R2 |
1:05:08.6 |
+ 0:03:18.3 |
