Mixed fortunes for Finlay

Finlay Retson was back in action for round three of the Motorsport UK Junior British Rally Championship.

But it proved to be an event of mixed fortunes for the Blairgowrie driver at the Grampian Forest Rally, held earlier this month.

Despite an impressive early pace, engine control unit (ECU) issues on his M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally4 cruelly denied another top result.

His weekend was also blighted by a puncture and an injury at the start of the second stage of the rally, which was later discovered to be a fractured ankle.

“It certainly wasn’t been the best of weekends for us, that is for sure,”Retson reflected afterwards.

“It started well enough though and being four seconds off the lead was certainly an encouraging pace, but stage two wasn’t kind for many reasons. Firstly, I went over on my ankle at the start of the stage and, although it was pretty painful, I think the adrenaline kept me going.

“But later in the stage, the car just cut out and we lost over two minutes trying to sort it out.

“By that time, we were out of the race for the lead so the rest of the day was spent trying to play catch up.”

Finlay enjoyed a positive start to his Junior British Rally Championship campaign this season.

The opening round of the series saw him finish just outside the podium places in fourth before recovering on Welsh gravel a month later to take an impressive second place and put him in the mix for the championship lead.

He headed to Banchory to secure more valuable points for his title charge and adapted perfectly to the unique stages in the region by going second fastest over the opening six-mile Durris test.

Sadly, his hard work would come undone on the second stage with that ECU overheating issue.

Luckily, a service halt followed straight after and the team were able to rectify the problem, allowing Finlay to attempt to pick up where he left off on the opening stage of the rally.

And he delivered – storming to a win on the very next stage which started his climb up the leaderboard from 12th.

That progress was temporarily halted on stage four with a puncture forcing him to drop a further 30 seconds to the leaders.

But by the penultimate test, he had stormed to eighth spot. That became sixth by the finish in Banchory.

“I’m happy with my performance and to win two stages is really encouraging for the rest of the season,”Finlay continued.

“If it wasn’t for the issues I’m sure we would have been challenging for a win, but we have to look at the season as a whole and realise this is another points score for us and that still means I’m second in the championship with four rounds to go.

“I don’t think we had luck on our side. My ankle and puncture was the icing on the cake.

“Luckily the pain wasn’t too bad until I got to the finish so, hopefully, it will heal in time for the next rally.”