CRONIN CONFIDENT OF RESPONDING TO PRYCE IN BRC BATTLE IN SCOTLAND
Title chaser wants to get his charge reignited on Grampian event this weekend
Keith Cronin is confident of hitting back at Osian Pryce as their battle for the British Rally Championship heats up on this weekend’s Grampian Forest Rally.
Pryce has won two rounds to Cronin’s one so far, but Cronin heads the championship with a pair of second places while Pryce was disqualified from the Jim Clark Rally.
Cronin, who returned to rallying last year in a Ford Fiesta Rally2, doesn’t feel he’s as quick at adapting back to gravel as he is asphalt and that potentially cost him on last month’s Nicky Grist Stages.
“I don’t think I was going to beat Osian in Wales,” Cronin told MN, “but maybe the Grampian will be a different story. Obviously, the Nicky Grist was on his doorstep. But we weren’t a million miles away and obviously it’s a big step up in pace from last year, and he [Pryce] knows the car, he’s had a year in it.”
The Grampian may not be another showdown between Cronin and Pryce though, as youngsters Ruairi Bell and James Williams have had the pace to challenge on all the rallies so far, while Fiesta Rally2 pilots Garry Pearson and Elliot Payne should show well too.
David Bogie leads the Scottish Rally Championship contingent but will compete on the same stages as the BRC for the first time since 2019. Bogie won’t get a pre-event recce but can run a bigger restrictor in his Ford Fiesta Rally2. However he isn’t interested in his pace compared to the BRC drivers.
“We won’t be too fussed about the BRC,” Bogie told MN. “When you’re going into a stage without a recce on organiser’s notes you’ve just got to be that bit more cautious. There’s definitely a big advantage to recce so we’ll just go and do our own thing, go out there and enjoy it.”