WRC ACES JUMP FOR GOODWOOD GLORY
The tree-lined banks of Goodwood’s Hannu Mikkola-designed rally stage come at you alarmingly fast. The front wheels of ‘EMO8’, the works Mini that finished the 1963 RAC Rally in fourth with Paddy Hopkirk at the wheel, gripped the chalk surface despite its loose rear.
Driver Peter Smith pinned the throttle open to keep the revs high, dissuading the rear axle from breaking out of line. It was on the fine line between exuberance and feeling beyond control.
But, unsurprisingly, current World Rally Championship runner
Mads Ostberg’s Citroen C3 left it for dead when he took to the course.
As a good barometer of the show the Duke of Richmond likes to put on for spectators, Ostberg said: “There’s also a jump in there that I’ve heard they are measuring, so I’ve done my best on that.”
M-sport’s Elfyn Evans and five-time WRC champion Sebastien
Ogier were in action in a Ford Fiesta WRC the day before, but neither matched Ostberg’s pace.
But since they weren’t entered into the official timed Shootout, that allowed Ollie Mellors to take top honours on a surface he summed up as “like a concrete base with a fine marble top”.
Mellors consistently topped the timesheets, despite a roll in his yet-to-be-homologated Proton Iriz R5 on Saturday.
Mellors and his fellow R5 driver Chris Ingram, in a Skoda Fabia, traded fastest times on Saturday, although Ingram did manage to break two rear bumpers by “using all of the road”.
On Sunday it was the turn of Ford Focus WRC driver David Wright (below) to set a time good enough for second.