a day ago
- Automotive
- Belfast Telegraph
Callum Devine's double delight as Ulster Rally triumph sees him reclaim Irish Tarmac Rally Championship title
Devine made a break for the front over Friday's opening six stages to provisionally lead by 12.9 seconds despite boiling his brakes and clipping the right-rear tyre on his Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 – a mistake that would normally be punished but he managed to get away with.
He hammered home his lead across Saturday's six bone-dry closed-road speed tests, his previous experience of carrying the No.1 on the side of his door paying dividends.
After 100 competitive miles, he secured a first Ulster win to add it to the first-place finishes he recorded at the Circuit of Ireland Rally, Rally of the Lakes in Killarney and Donegal International Rally with Noel O'Sullivan in the space of a five-month period.
'It has been a tough season so far and there has been a lot of pressure, but we have put a lot of work into it,' said Devine, who joins an illustrious list of former Ulster Rally winners including Swede Stig Blomqvist, the late Colin McRae and Craig Breen, M-Sport owner Malcolm Wilson OBE and FIA World Rally Championship drivers Elfyn Evans and Adrien Fourmaux.
'I am very happy to finally get a first Ulster Rally win; four wins out of four is fantastic and, to be honest, it is not something I thought would happen, so I am just delighted,' added Devine, who survived a late turbo boost scare over the final few miles.
Runner-up on his Hyundai i20 N Rally2 debut – and on his first Ulster appearance since 2021 when he lost the British Rally Championship title to an accident – was Osian Pryce.
Using the Newry-based event purely as a warm-up for September's Rali Ceredigion, and to refine the set-up of the C&M Motorsport-owned Korean supermini, the Welshman said the performance 'shows what we have got – and the good progress that we have made'.
He leapfrogged the Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 of Declan Boyle on Saturday's opener and was never headed from that point on, helped by some handling issues with Boyle's Czech car.
Third was still a respectable outcome for veteran driver Boyle, who rolled back the years.
Kevin Eves – on his maiden Rally2 campaign – was a safe fourth in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta and England's Neil Roskell fifth with Daniel Barritt at the controls of an identical Ford Fiesta.
Elsewhere, Damian Toner was triumphant in the hotly contested Modified Section of the Ulster Rally, his Ford Escort Mk2 having the edge over the Toyota Starlet of Gareth Black.
