Moffett beats the big guns in BRC opener
All the action from British Rallying’s curtain-raiser at Oulton Park
Rhys Yates seemed to be the favourite. Or was it Frank Bird? Perhaps Matt Edwards would be though. Yes, he was learning a new car but that didn’t stop him on last year’s Cambrian Rally? Then what about Osian Pryce? He’s certainly no slouch. The one man we hadn’t really been talking about was Sam Moffett, and how foolish does that make us all look now?
There’s not a lot Moffett hasn’t conquered behind the wheel of a rally car, but winning a round of the British Rally Championship was one such accolade the Irishman was yet to tick off prior to 2021. He put that right on last Monday’s Neil Howard Stages around Oulton Park, fending off fellow Ford Fiesta Rally2 pilot Rhys Yates by just a single second.
“Can’t believe it, cannot believe it,” Moffett spluttered, seemingly quite incredulous at what he’d managed to pull off. “It’s been a phenomenal day. In fairness everything went so well, credit to the event, the team and the spectators and everything it was a fantastic weekend and thanks to the marshals. We’ve more interest now than ever [in this championship] so let’s get going!”
The question is, why was Moffett the rank outsider? And how did he pull off the victory on one of the biggest steps into the unknown organisers of the BRC have ever taken? After all, this was the first British championship rally ever to be held entirely at a race track – although the 1998 Silverstone Rallysprint did count towards manufacturers’ points.
It had been a long 68 weeks since the last round of the BRC – the Cambrian – had been held. Coronavirus had put a stop to the action but, at least if round one is anything to go by, the break has done the series a world of good given the strength in depth of the Oulton entry.
Moffett was one of several Irishmen to switch tack and opt for the BRC – instead of his local Irish Tarmac Championship which has been put on hold for another year. Oulton Park, and indeed single venues, are not common hunting grounds for the 2017 ITRC champion but despite this, he and Keith Moriarty punched in an early fifth-best time on what was Moffett’s debut with the Rally2 Fiesta.
That time was some seven seconds adrift of the ultimate pace however, which was set by GT racer Bird and co-driver Jack Morton’s similar Fiesta. Because of his experience of circuits and rallying on events like this, Bird was expected to fly but his pace – and assurance to keep such esteemed company behind him – was immense in the early phases.
Leading the rally by 2s after the first stage – Yates, Edwards and Pryce were tied in second – Bird ceded a second to Yates on the repeat pass but didn’t let that get to him. Claiming that second on SS3, he doubled his lead again – as Edwards bagged his first stage win since his switch to a Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 for 2021 – before extending his advantage
further on SS4, only this time he found some four 4s over a tied Edwards, Yates and Pryce to lead by 6s at the lunchtime break.
At this stage, the rally looked to be a four-horse race with Edwards and Yates tied for second and Pryce gamely hanging on in fourth, 10s shy of the lead. SS5 would do little to disturb that belief as Bird again nicked time from Yates and James Morgan who still couldn’t shake off Edwards and Darren Garrod – another identical time gluing the two crews together in joint second spot.
Moffett’s fastest time almost went unnoticed – 1s quicker than the soaring Bird – as he consolidated his fifth spot, 14s shy of the lead but comfortably clear of the brewing battle behind. The same couldn’t be said of his SS6 pace however, as Moffett found an obscene 10s from his first pass but more crucially, stopped the clocks 5s faster than anybody else could manage.
That stage would be the quite literal turning point of the contest. While Moffett later confessed to a “really good push” on that particular layout of circuit test, the time of his counter-attack would prove ominous. Bird dropped a whopping 19s after a costly spin, while Edwards was slapped with a 10s penalty for not slowing sufficiently over the flying finish in the pitlane. Suddenly Moffett was up from fifth to second, and just 1s behind new leader Yates.
Bird described his woe: “Just coming onto one of the gravel sections, I think I was probably a little too wide on the entry, pulled the handbrake and just spun it,” he said. “I nearly saved it but then I stalled it.”
These concerns would later prove academic as although he salvaged third (from what was fourth after SS6), his Fiesta Rally2 was excluded from the results after being found to be too light on the scales when both crew and car were factored in – an FIA regulation that the BRC stipulates.
This was of little concern to Moffett however who knew he had a job to do. He hadn’t expected to head into the lion’s den and come out with the prey but, once he could smell it, he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. Three seconds faster than Yates on SS7, a 1s deficit to the Englishman was no drama as Moffett held on to claim the win by just a single second. Pryce quietly snuck onto the rostrum’s final step; 8s adrift of the leader but 5s up on new Melvyn Evans Motorsport team-mate Edwards.
Desi Henry marked his return to BRC action with a strong run to fifth which included a devastating fastest time on the penultimate test. That run eased him clear of Seb Perez who scored sixth on his BRC debut, making good use of all of his circuit-racing experience on contours that were more familiar to him than most.
Moffett’s brother Josh was a rather muted seventh in his Hyundai, 53s adrift of his sibling’s winning time, although he did have the measure of Ollie Mellors’s Proton which was eighth.
Late entrant Enda O’Brien was ninth in a VW, leaping past Joe McGonigle on the final stage to nick the spot by just 2s.