Welshman Osian Pryce, with co-driver Dale Furniss have taken overall victory on the opening round of the British Rally Championship (BRC), the Pirelli Carlisle RB Foundation Rally winning by 46 seconds after 10 stages. This is the fourth consecutive BRC victory for Pryce since last August’s Rally Northern Ireland and was sealed with fastest times on nine of the ten gravel special stages that made up the rally.
Osian says, “Very happy, everything went to plan. We came here to win, but it’s my fifth time on the Pirelli and probably the first time I’ve had any luck on it, so it’s very long overdue. They were just great stages, probably the smoothest Pirelli Rally I’ve done and we quickly realised that at 90 per cent we could still beat Daniel (McKenna), so that’s what we did. We haven’t taken any risks at all.”
“Today has been very slippy and that has made it more challenging. But we have taken no risks, kept it all in the middle of the road, avoided everything that may have been on our line and driven at 90% to deliver this victory. I know that I have more speed to come should I need to deliver it.”
The Pirelli Rally is mostly based in the largest man-made forest complex in Europe, Kielder Forest, or Killer Kielder as it is known in rallying circles. It is the different nature of these forest roads that Osian has never mastered before but the 21-year old who started rallying at 16 in Latvia, served up a master-class this weekend.
“To have 9 fastest stage times out of ten is great but you do think I could have gone quicker on that one that got away. SS6 had some huge rocks that were pulled out on to the line and we decided to drive round them all as there was no need to take risks. Senslible at the time but now it is all over, it would have been nice to have got a clean sweep.” says a confident Osian.
The victory gives Pryce and Furniss full points for the opening round of the Championship with another five to go. As well as leading the British Championship, they now lead the BRC Gravel Cup and Citroen Racing Cup as well.
“We were determined to get strong points on the board from this one. Saturday was very tricky as the stages, especially on the first loop were very loose and the car moved around a lot. But come the afternoon stages they were down more to the hard base and were really enjoyable, good fast stages that are great to drive. Today was more of keeping our lead and I’d found a pace I was happy with, so we just stuck with that.”
Dale says, “The notes worked really well, something that is really important on this event as there are so many crests and the speed is so high. We weren’t sure of the pace of the others and because we had finished last year on such a high, the pressure was really on us to fail. But we drove sensibly, didn’t take and risks and Osian and the whole team did a great job. I can’t wait for the tarmac now!”
The next round of the British Rally Championship moves from Forestry Commission gravel stages to the closed public roads around the Scottish Borders, The Jim Clark Rally based in Kelso over the weekend of 30th and 31st May.
Thanks to Jakob Ebrey Motorsport Photography for the images.
