JUNIOR WRC PRIZE FUND UP FOR GRABS AS BELL AND WILLIAMS TIED ON POINTS
Junior British Rally Championship contenders
James Williams and Ruairi Bell are poised for a winner-takes-all battle on the Galloway Hills Rally for a subsidised prize into the 2020 Junior World Rally Championship.
The top classified Ford Fiesta R2T competitor in this year’s JBRC will receive €60,000 from M-sport and Pirelli to be put towards a JWRC campaign the following season. Williams and Bell are tied on 48 points heading into the final round in Scotland this weekend.
“The prize is obviously what we want to compete for and we’ve come this far; I’d be lying if I said ‘oh yeah I’m just going to let him walk away with it’,” Bell told MN.
“James is very good, he’s beaten me at every round I’ve been up against him but we haven’t really competed on gravel so I don’t really know what he’s going to be like. I haven’t got very much experience, I’ve only done two gravel events in the UK.”
Bell has been eligible for the prize in all five rounds thus far to Williams’s three, but Williams has had the stronger results with a dominant win in Ypres and a second on the Ulster.
“I haven’t driven the car on gravel yet so that’ll be the biggest challenge, but I’m pretty confident I can have good pace,” Williams told MN. “Obviously I want to go and win the rally but if it comes to it the prize is my number one priority. We can’t underestimate each other and, although I’ve had the better of him this year so far, you never know what can happen on the day so for me [I’m approaching it] level-headed.”
Finlay Retson is still mathematically in contention but is 17 points adrift, however the Scot is the only one with previous Galloway Hills experience and is yet to play his points-boosting joker.