West Cork driver, Keith Cronin and his Killarney co-driver, Mikie Galvin, survived late drama to take second place on the Malcolm Wilson Rally, the opening round of the 2023 British Rally Championship.
The power steering pump on their Volkswagen Polo GTi failed on the penultimate stage, but they were fortunate that there was a service prior to the final test. The Tom Gahan Motorsport crew replaced the system during the twenty minutes allotted time, allowing Cronin to head for the final stage through Greystoke forest without any lateness penalties.
A trouble free run for Cronin and Galvin over the closing 7.5 competitive miles saw them retain their runner-up place in the event, and take valuable points in their quest to take this year's British Rally title.
The Malcolm Wilson Rally was won by the French pairing of Adrien Fourmaux and Alexandre Coria in the works M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally 2. They now head to Mexico where they will take part in the World Championship round next weekend.
Elliott Payne and Tom Woodburn rounded out the Malcolm Wilson podium positions in another Fiesta.
Cronin was happy with the result, in view of the mechanical scare, and an earlier loss of time when he caught the Rally 1 Ford Puma of Jourdan Serderidis: "We would have been there or thereabouts only for catching the car on stage two, and the power steering problem on the second last one.
"It’s good to have the World Championship lads here and to be on the pace with them, both ourselves and some of the other crews as well. It was tricky on the first pass earlier with the ice. It’s a good result for us after six months away, Adrien probably has more rallying done already this year than we will do all year".
The next round of the BRC is the Jim Clark Rally in Scotland on 26-27 May.
