RALLY NEWS NO.9 Omagh Service/Sunday 1.30

UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 9 Craig Hill
1st (2) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza WRC) 1.19.52.8
2nd (1) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Impreza WRC) 1.20.27.5
3rd (4) Kris Meeke/Paul Nagle (Impreza WRC) 1.20.36.8
4th (9) Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Floene (Focus WRC) 1.21.12.5
5th (3) Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Focus WRC) 1.22.30.0
6th (6) Kevin Lynch/David Moynihan (Focus WRC) 1.22.36.5
7th (12) Sean Devine/Paul McGlaughlin (Impreza WRC) 1.24.30.1
8th (8) Gareth Jones/Andrew Bargery (Focus WRC) 1.24.47.3
9th (15) Martin Doherty/Eugene O'Donnell (Impreza WRC) 1.25.33.8
10th (20) Seamus Leonard/Gerry McVeigh (Lancer N) 1.25.56.3

A sparkling run from Mark Higgins in the Pirelli backed Impreza WRC has seen him increase his lead this morning and with 3 stages left the British Champion has 36s in hand over Eugene Donnelly while Kris Meeke is just under 10s behind Donnelly. Meeke’s charge was thwarted by a stage 9 puncture while Donnelly scored a fastest time through stage 9 but that meant little as both himself and Higgins “cleaned” the stage.

Mark Higgins said “We had a puncture as well, lost 3 or 4 seconds, I think it was a slow puncture, it was a front right tyre, but I don’t know if we clipped anything or not. There was a small delay at the start of that stage, the air temperature dropped and the tyre pressures fell so we had a few moments early on. On Rousky, the middle stage, we had a good time, a big attack”. Indeed Mark was 6s better than both Meeke and Donnelly through the Rousky test.

Kris Meeke said “On the middle stage, Rousky, there were a a few nasty bumps that I didn’t expect, and I didn’t want to hurt the car, but right from the start of stage 9 the tyre was flat. I did check the tyres when we arrived at the stage and they looked perfect, but then there was a long delay and that is maybe what caught me out”. When asked about his Impreza handling following the gearbox change Kris went on “Its definitely better I can get on the power earlier, I knew there was something wrong yesterday afternoon”. In terms of winning and losing Kris continued. “Its not over yet, we’ll keep the pressure on”.

Eugene Donnelly said “We’re having a weird day, the car is fine, couldn’t ask for better and I thought we drove a good stage through Barnes Gap. I was running on number two lag, not number three, the aggressive one, but still thought I had gone well, but sure I lost time to both Mark and Kris. I was a bit dejected. I didn’t push then through Rousky but had a good time, then on the 3rd stage of the loop, we drove well, had a good clean run, but the stage was too short. We were fastest although they had punctures, but now it seems we’ve broken the bogey time”.

Andreas Mikkelsen in 4th clipped a front wheel at the end of Barnes Gap but managed to get the front right wheel changed before Rousky so lost no time, and had good times today. Kevin Lynch had a poor enough time through stage 8 and joked that he was doing doughnuts for the spectators and then said. “At least I didn’t spin into a field!” Eamonn Boland reckons he ran over one of RPM’s cameras at one point but lot little time. Peadar Hurson was in 7th this morning after Barnes Gap but his Impreza ground to a h alt halfway through the Rousky stage. Sean Devine and Gareth Jones reported no problems. While Martin Doherty slowed down towards the end of stage 8 he was just so exhausted he couldn’t drive the car quickly.

In Group N Colm Murphy was fast4est through stage 9, overall category leader Seamus Leonard having overshot a junction and nearly put his Lancer under a 40 foot trailer! In overall terms Leonard leads GpN by 39s from Colm Murphy with Roy White a further 44s back. Connor McCloskey is 4th GpN. John McGlaughlin 5th and Kevin O’Donoghue 6th. Other GpN drivers in the picture include Gary Cairns who is lying 19th o/a and Conor Byrne of Modern Tyre Service in 220th.

More news later. BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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