EDWARDS SHRUGS OFF MULL DRAMA AS HE CHASES TITLE
Reigning champion says he remains confident ahead of the final two British rounds
Matt Edwards is confident his Mull Rally mistake hasn’t damaged his 2021 British Rally Championship assault ahead of this weekend’s penultimate round, the Cambrian Rally.
Osian Pryce leads Edwards by 16 points but if dropped scores are applied, Edwards is ahead by two. Edwards has won twice this season – and has won the last two Cambrian rallies – while Pryce got off the mark on Mull earlier this month.
“I don’t think it’s done that much damage really,” Edwards told MN of his Mull crash. “I know [Pryce]’s played his Joker but if we’re two ahead with two dropped scores then it’s game on isn’t it?
“The two final events [Cambrian and Ulster] are strong events for me so I’m not panicking, I’m comfortable that we can achieve the pace that we need to do it, it’s just the variables that you can’t control that are the difficult bits.”
Pryce admitted his first BRC victory since 2014 was important for his confidence: “Noel [O’Sullivan, co-driver] and I were saying we haven’t really had a clean run all year with the car whereas Matt’s been at one with his all year. But yet, he’s the one that’s been doing the mistakes, we haven’t really put a foot wrong considering we haven’t really had a car that’s to our liking. OK we did one mistake on the Trackrod but that was quite a small thing really. If we can be in this position without having had a clean run all year things should in theory look up and get better.”
The Melvyn Evans Motorsport team-mates had a private duel on Mull as the only two BRC1 entrants, but several of their rivals return for the Cambrian. M-Sport’s Matthew Wilson and Rhys Yates will be key threats as will Keith Cronin and
Ollie Mellors, while James Williams could be a dark horse on his first rally of 2021.