Driving a Peugeot 208 RX, it was Mark Higgins who claimed his first victory in the MSA British Rallycross championship at Lydden Hill Circuit.
The Albatec Racing driver had been fast all day, sitting third quickest after the morning heats and moving on to win his semi-final, against the likes of late entry Liam Doran and Jake Harris. His endeavours throughout the day were enough to put him on pole going into the final, alongside the winner of the other semi-final, Oliver Bennett and Ollie O’Donovan.
Off the line, it was Doran who made up the most ground, going to first from fourth. Bennett, conversely, got away poorly and therefore decided to joker immediately, along with O’Donovan and Mike Manning.
Doran maintained his lead until the top of Hairy Hill, but it was here that Higgins made his move past him. Many of the other drivers were struggling for grip and control in the difficult wet conditions, but Higgins called upon his rally experience to make the pass stick. There was a small amount of contact between the two drivers but both got away relatively unscathed.
A lap later, however, Doran was out after breaking his steering with a trip to the grass. Higgins had built a healthy lead by this point and jokered without being challenged by the now second-placed Julian Godfrey in his new Mitsubishi Mirage.
For the remaining laps, the order remained unchanged, and Higgins took the chequered flag ahead of Godfrey and O’Donovan. Harris finished fourth, Bennett fifth and Manning sixth. Steve Hill and Doran did not make it to the finish.
Higgins commented afterwards that the race “was good.”
“We’ve had an eventful day with the weather, it’s been changeable, so just trying to get a balance of the car has been difficult but the team has worked great.
“We didn’t have an ideal start, but we knew that we’d got the lead we were ok, we knew Liam (Doran) was behind and that was always going to be the main fight here, so we got a bit of a whack off him at the top of the hill! After he had his problem we were clear to get to the end, so we were just trying to keep it neat and tidy, but it was very greasy.”
“It was great to get our first win and get that monkey off our back.”