Cambrian triumph for Pryce
OSIAN PRYCE put himself firmly in the pound seat in the race for the 2021 Motorsport UK British Rally Championship title after storming to a Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally victory on Saturday.
Pryce and co-driver Noel O’Sullivan took their Melvyn Evans Motorsport Volkswagen to their second BRC win of the season thanks to a faultless drive in the famous North Wales stages.
Leading from the opening stage, the duo would never be knocked off top spot, taking their Michelin-shod Polo GTi to back-to-back wins.
Seb Perez and Gary McElhinney upheld M-Sport honours by taking their maiden BRC podium in second place, driving their Pirelli-rubbered Fiesta Rally2, whilst two-time event winner and BRC title contenders Matt Edwards and Darren Garrod endured another tough weekend to take third after a nail-biting final loop.
World-class stages, famous for hosting the World Rally Championship crews on Wales Rally GB tested the BRC regulars to the limit thanks to the unforgiving and slippery nature of the North Wales forests.
Based at the seaside town of Llandudno, the event also offered a unique twist to the format thanks to a brand new closed-road asphalt stage to round out proceedings.
Four drivers would head into the weekend still in with a chance of the title, but after 44 miles of blistering stage action, that would be down to just two.
Double British champion Edwards would start the event as arguably the preevent favourite and the Conwy driver would sensibly elect to play his Joker card for the chance of bagging up to five additional points on his home round.
But Pryce stole the march with the fastest time over the opener and despite an initial fightback from teammate Edwards, he had full command all rally long.
“Of course, it’s never nice to see your rival with issues [Edwards] but I`m delighted with the win today,” said Machynlleth’s Pryce.
“I think we did all we needed to do this morning really.
“We built up that buffer on the opening stage and that was really important seeing how the day panned out.
“We didn’t think it would be easy at all, but we have just done exactly what we have been doing all year and stayed out of trouble.”
“We knew we needed to win here and now it all goes down to the Ulster.”
Behind Pryce, the drama unfolded with Edwards struggling for grip in the tricky conditions.
A ten-second deficit was reduced to six by the third test and it was set to be another impressive battle between the stablemates.
But Edwards was launched off the road after a compression in the fourth stage and would lose over a minute and 40 seconds effecting repairs to the Polo to ensure he could continue.
In a nail-biting final loop, Edwards would do enough to crawl through the remaining three stages and salvage enough points to take the championship title fight to the final round, the Modern Tyres Ulster Rally in November.
“Whilst I feel lucky to have got the car back to the finish of the Cambrian Rally, my overriding emotion is of huge disappointment,” said Edwards.
“Just three corners into Gwydir we hit a bump that threw us across the road and into a little bank which broke a compression strut.
“It was 50-50 whether we’d park it up after that because the chances of us getting through Penmachno the way it looked was slim. But I never give up and just strapped it up the best I could and persevered.
“It’s incredible that we were able to reach the end of the rally and finish third in the BRC.
“These points won here have kept our title hopes alive and now it’s all to play for on the final round.”