Donnelly leads Ulster Rally

The first leg of the Philip White Tyres Ulster Rally, a round of the Pirelli Irish Tarmac Championship and the Tesco 99 Octane British series has concluded with Eugene Donnelly at the top of the leader board.

His performance through the two night stages was the key as he gained control of the rally and continued his pursuit of another Tarmac title.

Kris Meeke, who stunned the opposition with some staggering stage times in the Citroen C2 Super 1600 car, even though he admitted the set up wasn’t quite right for the opening stages, moved back into second on tonight’s final stage with Peadar Hurson some 15 seconds behind in third place.

Meeke from Dungannon, was the star of the second stages and was 0.3 of a second ahead of the Subaru of former national rally champion, Peadar Hurson with reigning tarmac champion, Eugene Donnelly in a Toyota Corolla in third – a further 4.4 seconds off the lead.

Donnelly was the only driver to complete the opening stage near Ballygawley as second seed, Tim McNulty (Subaru) crashed out, luckily, the Meath driver and his co-driver, Anthony Nestor were uninjured.

All the remaining drivers were credited with the same time as Donnelly.

Meeke had the edge by that fraction of a second through Stage 2 followed by Hurson and Donnelly, who was subsequently quickest through the spectator stage and then put the hammer down on S.S. 4 to move from third into the lead from Hurson and Meeke

On the final stage, Donnelly reigned supreme once more to end the leg with an advantage of 21.6 seconds.

Garry Jennings, on his debut in a Subaru WRC is fourth overnight with the WRC’s of Gareth Jones and Eamonn Boland filling the top six places.

Ryan Champion is the pacesetter in Group N and the British championship, but he’s only 1.9 seconds ahead of Meath’s, Rory Galligan, Gwyndaf Evans and Mark Higgins are also in close contention.

Seamus Leonard is the highest placed Group N driver in the Irish series.

1. E. Donnelly/P. Kiely (Toyota Corolla WRC) 33m. 57.9s.

2. K. Meeke/G. Patterson (Citroen C2) 34m. 19.5s.

3. P. Hurson/D. Connolly (Subaru WRC) 34m. 35.2s.

4. G. Jennings/E. Sherry (Subaru WRC) 34m. 37.7s.

5. G. Jones/D. Moynihan (Subaru WRC) 34m. 45.8s.

6. E. Boland/F. Regan (Ford Focus WRC) 34m. 50.2s.

7. R. Champion/C. Thorley (Lancer N) 35m. 12.8s.

8. R. Galligan/G. Shinnors (Mitsubishi) 35m. 14.7s.

9. G. Evans/H. Lewis (Mitsubishi) 35m. 16.2s.

10. M. Higgins/R. Kennedy (Subaru) 35m. 17.3s.