World RX of Great Britain

The final time for the World RX at Lydden Hill, for now, and Petter Solberg (Polo RX Supercar) arrived with the stated claim he wanted to take the win at the last Lydden meet. He started imperiously going fastest in 3 of the 4 qualifying rounds and adapted his tactics to win his semi final and ensure a front row start in the final. The Volkswagen proved to be a class act and with perfect timing for his joker lap Solberg won over a 1.5s from team mate Johan Kristoffersson, who took over the championship lead courtesy of his 2nd place. Andreas Bakkerud (Focus RSRX) was the best of rest in 3rd place and clear of the batting Sébastien Loeb (208 WRX) & Mattias Ekström (S1 EKS RX Quattro).

HSCC International Trophy – Silverstone

After the championship finals last year we took in the HSCC International Trophy, thankfully on the dry day of racing. The already packed schedule had been bolstered by an extra race from the Saturday and with the track dry, the drivers could unleash the full power of their historic cars. The schedule had a few stand out races with the Guards Trophy race as the centrepiece. Andrew Kirkaldy & Sandy Watson took their Chevron B8 to victory in that race and Kirkaldy took a solo win in the Pre ’80 Endurance race in Watson’s Chevron B19, another race to delight the senses.

Blancpain GT Series Endurance – Silverstone

The threat of rain during the 3 hour race failed to amount to more than just a few drops at Silverstone, but the racing was exciting enough without the weather mixing things up. With two safety car periods early on the field never really got spread out until the final hour of racing. Andrea Caldarelli / Christian Engelhart / Mirko Bortolotti (GRT Grasser Racing Team – Lamborghini Huracan GT3) took victory by less than half a second from Jimmy Eriksson / Maximilian Buhk / Franck Perera (Mercedes-AMG Team HTP Motorsport – Mercedes-AMG GT3) after leading early on. Completing the podium were Michael Meadows / Edoardo Mortara / Raffaele Marciello (AKKA ASP – Mercedes-AMG GT3) only 3 seconds behind the winners.

Plains Rally

Heavy overnight rain dampened down the Dyfi complex of stages and it was Stephen Petch & Michael Wilkinson (Fiesta WRC) who took the lead on the opening stage. Callum Black & Elliott Edmondson (Fiesta) went fastest on the next stage to tie for the overall lead but two more fastest times for Petch followed and his lead was 4 seconds by mid event service. In the afternoon Petch was joint fastest on only one stage but critically was not beaten by Black on any stage, taking victory by 11 seconds in the end. Black was having to keep an eye on Jamie Anderson & Ross Whittock (Fiesta R5) who completed the podium, just 7 seconds further back.

Manx National Rally

Glorious sunshine bathed the 2017 Manx National rally and with a hat-trick of wins to their names Jason Pritchard & Phil Clarke (Focus WRC) looked to make it 4 wins in a row. 11 fastest stage times out of the 12 run normally would have been enough to comfortably win a rally but on the penultimate stage they were stopped for over 6 minutes. They had over 3 minutes lead at that point but the win was gone. Hugh Hunter & Rob Fagg (Fiesta R5) had been the best of the rest despite Hunter feeling unwell and took the win from Simon Bowen & Richard Robinson (Impreza WRC) by just under a minute.