Donnelly regains Galway Rally lead

Joint Irish Tarmac champion, Eugene Donnelly and his co-driver, Paul Kiely have regained the lead of the Galway International Rally on today’s eighth and final stage of the first leg.

On the day’s final stages, Donnelly trailed Austin MacHale by 3.6 seconds, Donnelly led from the second stage until the SS 5. A broken brake disc on SS 4 cost him time and he had to traverse part of that stage and stages five and six with the problem.

At the second service halt, he trailed Austin MacHale by 4.1 seconds.

However, on the SS 7, today’s penultimate stage, Donnelly trimmed the deficit to just a second, and with fastest time on the final stage of the leg, he regained top spot by 3 seconds, even though his Corolla had a damaged exhaust gasket.

MacHale (Ford Focus WRC) ended his day in a secure second spot – almost 47.7 seconds clear of the Subaru WRC of Peadar Hurson.

Derek McGarrity – debuting a Skoda Fabia WRC - is a further 13.9 seconds behind in fourth.

Eamonn Boland, 17th overall in the Monte Carlo rally last month, is fifth in his Subaru WRC.

Tim McNulty is coming to terms with his new S10 Subaru WRC, throughout the day he has been trying various suspension settings.

Although he was sixth overall in stage times, a two-minute time penalty has been added which demotes him to 10th. McNulty is likely to query this decision.

Gareth MacHale is trouble free in his Toyota Corolla and is followed by the Subaru WRC of Denis Cronin.

Early leader, Kevin Lynch, who lost some three minutes, is climbing up the leader board. He is now in eighth place.

The Group N category is being led by Colm Murphy, who is also ninth overall.

1. E. Donnelly/P. Kiely (Toyota Corolla WRC) 1h. 02m. 53.8s.

2. A. MacHale/B. Murphy (Ford Focus WRC) 1h. 02m. 56.8s.

3. P. Hurson/G. Patterson (Subaru WRC) 1h. 03m. 44.1s.

4. D. McGarrity/D. O’Gorman (Skoda Fabia WRC) 1h. 03m. 53.8s.

5. E. Boland/F. Regan (Subaru WRC) 1h. 04m. 24.5s.

6. G. MacHale/P. Nagle (Toyota Corolla WRC) 1h. 05m. 07.9s.

7. D. Cronin/H. O’Sullivan (Subaru WRC) 1h. 05m. 37.5s.

8. K. Lynch/G. Noble (Subaru WRC) 1h. 05m. 38.2s.

9. C. Murphy/G. Loughrey (Subaru) 1h. 05m. 55.8s. (Group N)

10.T. NcNulty/F. E. O’Donnell (Subaru WRC) 1h. 07m. 03.3s – including a 2 min. penalty.