This year’s Circuit of Ireland rally brought together the cream of European, Irish and British rallying for two days of the finest tarmac rallying anywhere in Europe.

Paul Willetts told the Ross Gazette that a full entry of 165 cars left Belfast on Friday morning for 132 miles of competitive action, including the classics, Torr Head, Glendrun and Hamilton’s Folly on the notoriously difficult Irish lanes.

It was a mixed weekend for two local co-drivers, Will Rogers teamed up with Matt Edwards in the Swift Group/D-Mack Tyres Lancer Evo 9, after an excellent start on round one of the British Rally championship opener in Mid Wales with 8th overall & 1st in class, the duo were looking forward to doing battle with both top European and Irish drivers in the production class and adding to their points haul.

But disaster struck on the start line of the opening stage when the fuel pumped seized, causing instant retirement on day one.

The rules allow crews to re-start on day two under super-rally regulations, but time penalties applied, so they started day two last overall. The good news was that their British championship rivals had also retired on day one, so it was all to play for, as day two dawned a lot drier than day one.

They took the first two stages steadily to find the grip levels on the slippery tarmac but then started to push, setting a couple of top 20 stage times.

The second loop saw them change to a softer compound tyre, which really improved things with consistent top 15 times, which saw the duo finish second in class and still leading the British Championship production class.

Rogers said: “We were gutted after the fuel pump failure on Friday, after we’d prepared so well, but Saturday went very well and we salvaged some good points. It was an awesome rally with classic stages.”

For Ross-on-Wye based Paul Morris, who teamed up with Abergavenny businessman Damian Cole in the Get Connected Fiesta S2000, they were looking to improve on their first round retirement, but it was another frustrating event.

Set up issues saw them languishing down the leaderboard at the end of day one, and after the first test on Saturday, they decided to retire and save the car.

Citroen factory driver, Craig Breen took victory for the second year running in a DGM run Citroen DS3 R5. The next BRC round sees a return to gravel for the Pirelli Rally and the notorious Kielder Forest lies in wait.