and BRC finale
Hot off the back of a
stunning performance on Wales Rally GB, where he finished 14th overall
and second in SWRC in the second official PROTON Motorsports Satria Neo
S2000, Welsh rally driver Tom Cave heads to Yorkshire next weekend, for
the finale of the MSA British Rally Championship. Tom, and co-driver
Craig Parry, are currently lying third in the championship and while
there are six drivers who can mathematically win the series, two are not
competing in Yorkshire, so it will be a four-way fight for the 2012
title.
The favourites are likely to
be Tom and former double BRC champion, Keith Cronin. Tom is just four
points behind Cronin and with 50% extra points available in Yorkshire
and dropped scores coming into play, the possible permutations are huge.
However, from Tom's point of
view, he knows that to stand any chance of clinching the 2012 BRC
title, he has to put in the performance of his career. He is already
riding a wave of confidence, following his Wales Rally GB success,
coupled with a win in Thailand with Proton and outright wins on the
Coracle Stages and the Mid-Wales rallies earlier this year, in addition
to a win in the BRC.
And while it looks like a
difficult task to best Cronin, who would appear to only need to finish
eighth in Yorkshire to wrap up the title, Tom knows that nothing is
decided until the end of the event.
Commenting ahead of the rally, Tom said; "I
think Rally Yorkshire will be one of the hardest events of my career.
There is so much at stake that getting the right balance on the event
will be crucial.
"The obvious strategy
might be to push at maximum attack from the off but this could quite
easily backfire, as if I fail to finish and the others do well, I could
go from second to fourth in the championship.
"However, if I settle in
and go for a reasonable result, particularly ahead of Osian [Pryce] and
Jonnie [Greer], then that could help cement second in the championship,
which wouldn't be a bad result for my first season contesting the full
BRC.
"That could also mean
second in the Citroen Racing Trophy. However, if I come home as the
first driver under 23, I win a significant credit for parts against an
entry in the Rallye du Var in France in 2013.
"Of course, aiming for a
solid second place could also be rewarding if Keith has a problem, such
as another mechanical issue like he had on the Sunseeker. I think the
only thing that is certain is that we won't know who's champion until
the stop line of the last stage on Saturday."
The event begins with a
ceremonial start on the seafront in Scarborough in the evening of Friday
28 September, followed by a single special stage that evening. There
then follow a further five stages on Saturday 29 September, run in the
infamous Dalby Forest, before the first crews are expected at the
finish, again on the seafront that evening.
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