YATES TARGETS A FULL WRC2 ATTACK
Briton wants to step up to the next level
European Rally Championship driver Rhys Yates is eyeing the step up to a full WRC2 campaign next season.
The Skoda Fabia R5 driver tackled Rally of Spain for the second time last month and said he immediately felt the benefit of competing at the highest level of R5 rallying.
“I’d like to be in WRC2 next year,” he said. “That’s where you’ve got to be to progress. Don’t get me wrong, I love the ERC, I think it’s mega and the exposure’s great and the pace is good. But this is the next step. The guys in here now are very, very competitive and this is where I’m going to learn. That’s what I want to do, that’s what I’m aiming for.”
Yates, 26, will remain with the Fabia R5 car having ruled out the potential to step down a level of car in order to learn the WRC rounds.
“It’s so much about experience of these events,” he said. “You’ve got to start learning these rallies – the guys around me in WRC2 in Spain have so much more experience than me. But if I were to go back to Spain again next year, I would know an awful lot more.”
Yates finished just outside the WRC2 top 10 in Spain, but admitted he ticked plenty of boxes.
“The one thing I didn’t want to do was rip a corner off the car or get a puncture,” he said. “You don’t learn anything when the car’s lying on its side in a ditch. We got through the event and I learned plenty – that long stage on gravel [Fatarella-vilalba] was incredible; there was just no rhythm in there at all. Just when I thought I was in a bit of a groove, I hit one of them divots and it nearly throws you through the windscreen!
“But on the Tarmac, I learned lots more and the times were a lot closer. I’d never driven with the soft tyre, I’d never been in conditions where you might have crossed the tyres. I just tried to take it all in and the times were getting better all the time.”