21-year-old Elfyn Evans from Machynlleth scored his third Fiesta SportTrophy championship crown at the weekend, with his sixth consecutive Kick Energy Fiesta SportTrophy UK (FST UK) victory on the Toddsleap.com Rally Northern Ireland. In only his second event driving a Fiesta R2, Evans and co-driver Andrew led from the start and led all the way as they cruised to victory on the challenging Irish Tarmac event.
The Antrim based event kicked off on Friday evening with crews tackling two loops of three stages including the daunting eight mile Torrs Head stage. FST regulars John Boyd and Peter Taylor both opted to skip the Northern Irish event, leaving championship leader Evans and young Scotsman John MacCrone (20) from the Isle of Mull to hold up FST UK honours in the International event.
Evans made the perfect start, winning each of the stages on the opening loop to return to first service with a comfortable 50-second advantage. Evans’ charge had been helped somewhat by MacCrone, who had overshot a junction on SS1 and then stalled his Fiesta R2 on SS2, both costing him valuable seconds. Despite beating his fellow Celt on each of the opening three stages, Evans was not 100% happy with the car and felt the brakes were not performing at their optimum.
Despite the failing light, Evans improved his earlier times on each of the repeated stages. He improved by three seconds on the second run through Knockboy, before shaving eight and twelve seconds respectively on the repeat of Glen Dhu and Torrs Head stages. Evans also continued to stretch his lead over John MacCrone pulling out a further 50 seconds over his Fiesta R2 rival to lead by one minute 40 seconds at the end of the first day. MacCrone and co-driver Stuart Louden were opting for a cautious approach to start the event in order to avoid getting caught out by the challenging Irish stages on their Ulster debut.
Cool, dry conditions greeted the crews at the start of the second day, but the threatening grey skies made tyre choice critical and all the more difficult. Day two was once again made up of two loops, this time with four stages on each loop. The day started with the longest stage of the event, the challenging 13-mile Cairncastle stage. Despite its length, Cairncastle produced the closest stage finish of the event, with just 2.3 seconds separating Evans and MacCrone at the end. After dropping just nine seconds on both Stages 8 and 9 to Evans, MacCrone scored his debut Irish stage victory on SS10, pipping his Welsh rival by just 2.4 seconds. Although this did little to dent Evans’ advantage, MacCrone was pleased with his new found pace as he continued to regain his confidence in the R2 after his accident on the previous round.
MacCrone promptly followed up his success on SS10 with a repeat on SS11, Cairncastle 2, taking a further five seconds off Evans’ advantage and improving on his earlier effort by almost 20 seconds. Despite still holding a comfortable advantage, Evans hit back on SS12, Slemish 2, retaking the five seconds MacCrone had snatched on the previous stage. This also promoted Evans to the lead of the R2 class amongst the Dulux Trade British Rally Championship regulars.
An impressive run for both FST UK competitors through SS13, Tardree 2, saw Evans and MacCrone respectively post the ninth and twelfth fastest stage times overall on the penultimate stage of the event, ahead of some much more powerful machinery. With a comfortable lead in the both the FST UK event and the BRC R2 class, Evans could afford to relax on the final stage and claim his sixth FST UK victory of the year. This gave MacCrone his third stage win of the event with a time of five minutes 21 seconds, which was enough for ninth overall on the stage, fastest of all the R2 competitors in the event.
Evans’ blistering pace on the opening day, where he pulled out a one minute 40 second advantage, set him up for the weekend and he was then able to control the pace from the front. Evans’ once again also claimed the Castrol Hard Charger Award for the most stage wins, winning eleven stages from 14. MacCrone’s second place elevates him to second overall in the championship standings, ahead of John Boyd.
2010 Kick Energy FST UK Champion Elfyn Evans can now look forward to his prize drive in an M-Sport prepared Fiesta R2 on the MSA Rally Scotland on 15-17 October 2010. With 30 points still up for grabs on the final event of the year, the International Rally Yorkshire on 24-25 September 2010, the race for second is still open with MacCrone, John Boyd and Peter Taylor all still in with a chance of claiming second place.
2010 Kick Energy FST UK Champion Elfyn Evans said: “I’m delighted to finally wrap up FST UK title. I think we will be back in the [Fiesta] ST for the final round, the International Rally Yorkshire, where we hope to add the British Junior Championship title to this win. I’m really looking forward to Rally Scotland now and the chance to compete against some new opposition.”
– Credit: M-Sport.