AHLIN SKIPPING RALLY FINLAND TO FOCUS ON BRC TITLE PUSH
Swede is hoping asphalt testing will give him an edge in the British title battle
British Rally Championship leader Fredrik Ahlin will forego his Rally Finland WRC2 entry in order to concentrate on beating Elfyn Evans to the 2016 BRC title.
After leading the championship opening Mid Wales Stages before being reeled in by Elfyn Evans, Ahlin took many by surprise on the Circuit of Ireland Rally – the second round of the series – when he produced competitive times all morning on his first Tarmac rally for four years. He led the BRC contingent on the event before a small mistake put him out of the rally on Sunday. With two and a half of the four rounds remaining on asphalt, the Swede has identified where to he needs to improve.
“The plans have changed a bit,” admitted Ahlin, winner of the latest BRC round in Carlisle. “If we hadn’t been in this position of fighting for the championship I would have gone to Finland for sure. But we’re going to put everything into preparing myself as best as possible. I know it will be incredibly hard: Elfyn has the chance to drive the car almost every week, which I don’t have. If you look what we did on the Pirelli Rally, considering he’d been to Rally Argentina [the week before], I had not been on gravel for two months and we could still go up there and be quickest on the first stage.”
The Swede is hoping he can challenge for the title after his win on the Pirelli Carlisle was boosted by playing his double points joker on the event. Evans played his on the Mid Wales Stages.
Ahlin – along with his other CA1 Sport team-mates David Bogie, Alex Laffey and Tom Morton – will undertake asphalt warm-ups before Ulster and the Isle of Man, but it’s yet to be decided whether they will be in the form of tests of competitive events.