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RALLY NEWS NO.12 Milford Service/Saturday 7.30pm
UNOFFICIAL LEADERBOARD AFTER STAGE 16 (End of Leg 2)
1st (1) Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (Citroen C4 WRC) 1.53.54.3
2nd (2) Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Impreza WRC) 1.54.34.6
3rd (11) Kevin Lynch/David Moynihan (Focus WRC) 1.57.44.5
4th (5) Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely (Impreza WRC) 1.57.54.3
5th (16) Paul Harris/Eugene O'Donnell (Corolla WRC) 2.01.24.3
6th (17) Patrick Elliott/Paul Goodman (Impreza WRC) 2.03.02.1
7th (26) Seamus Leonard/Gerry McVeigh (Lancer N) 2.04.44.8
8th (24) Hugh M Doherty/Michael McBride (Impreza WRC) 2.04.48.1
9th (29) Garry Jennings/Damien Connelly (Lancer N) 2.06.05.7
10th (158) Niall Maguire/Enda Sherry (Impreza WRC) 2.06.08.5
At the end of a long day’s rallying World Champion Sebastien Loeb
and his co driver Daniel Elena carry a 40s lead into the overnight halt
in Letterkenny, their Citroen behaving impeccably throughout the day,
although Sebastien reported one very big moment in stage 15, Carnhill,
at a flat out right hander over a bump. Mark Higgins drove hard but hiccups
this morning saw his lead disappear and then Sebastien just turned on
the style. Mark’s Pirelli/MIS Subaru needs no more than a spanner
check at service before overnight parc ferme and he feels that although
it is different territory tomorrow Sebastien will be very hard to beat,
especially if it stays dry. Mark also commented “We were going on
the safe side of hard but I’m still thinking about the championship.
On the first stage out after last service it was slippy and the car was
all over the place but other than that it went well”.
Kevin Lynch just managed to hold on to 3rd place, but dropped time in
stage 16 and recounted. “Somehow or another I rolled back from the
start, lost about 15s there and then lit up like a light bulb and put
the car off the road!” Eugene Donnelly said. “On the first
stage after service I damaged a tyre and rim and I had just 2 intermediate
spares, so I had to fit one of those on the front which made the handling
of the car very interesting. That sort of sums up my whole day, nothing
went very well. Honestly I was driving my backside off over the last few
stages”. Paul Harris in 5th said. “I’m pedalling as
hard as we can go.” Patrick Elliott in 6th is going for a harder
set up hoping that tomorrow’s roads will be dry, but overall saying
he had a good run over this afternoon’s stages. Hugh M Doherty had
been 7th but a broken drive shaft on stage 16 cost time and his Subaru
is now in 8th.
Seamus Leonard is 7th and continues to lead group N. Seamus had a lucky
escape when Garry Jennings pulled up beside him at a stage start and told
him he had a flat tyre. At first Seamus thought it was a wind up, but
eventually he was persuaded to have a look, it was flat and he was allowed
to change it before the stage start. Garry Jennings is 2nd gpN, James
Cullen 3rd.
Sean Devine is just outside the leaderboard having battled back through
the day following earlier delays. News of another retirement is that James
Wozencroft decided to pull his Suzuki out to avoid any further damage
to the gearbox. His team mate Lorna Smith is still going but caught another
competitor in a stage, damaged the front of her Suzuki and then further
on put the car off the road on to some rocks and dropped 10 minutes, she
is still going and looking for championship points.
In the Fiesta Sporting Trophy Connor Harvey had a slender lead over Alastair
Fisher with Jonathan Greer 3rd, Tadgh Buckley 4th. In the Historics after
stage 3 stages Adrian Kermode in his Porsche led Donal Connolly and Richard
Hall, both in Escorts. In the National Rally with just a few stages to
go to the overnight halt Phil Collins led from Damien Gallagher with Rodney
Wilton 3rd, all in Escorts.
More news in the morning: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON www.rallynews.net
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