Meeke wins Ulster Rally at a canter

Kris Meeke and co-driver, Paul Nagle in the Pirelli-backed Subaru WRC have won the Philip White Tyres Ulster Rally, a counting round of both the Irish and British Rally championships.

They finished the 16 stage event with a 2 minute and 42 second winning margin over the Subaru WRC of Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely with Eamonn Boland/Francis Regan (Subaru WRC) a further two minutes and 2.5 seconds behind in third.

Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy (Subaru) won Group N and also secured fourth overall.

On this morning’s opening stage, Meeke was a staggering 35.6 seconds quicker than Donnelly, Meeke on his home territory around Dungannon.

On the next stage, he added to his lead and by the completion of S.S. 13, he had pushed his advantage out to two minutes and 34.8 seconds.

The rally leader spun and stalled on S.S. 12, Donnelly also spun his Reid Transport Subaru but was still well clear of third placed, Eamonn Boland (Subaru), who was a minute and 42.4 seconds further behind.

Mark Higgins (Subaru) held fourth at the service halt that followed S.S. 13, the Welsh based Isle of Man driver led Group N.

The morning stages brought a number of retirements including Tim McNulty, who crashed his Subaru on Stage 7, Andrew Nesbitt, who punctured his Subaru on Stage 7 and retired after a small fire on board his Subaru on Stage 8.

Guy Wilks, in a Mitsubishi, bowed out with mechanical problems as did David Higgins (Toyota Corolla) and Owen Murphy (Mitsubishi).

In the afternoon tests around Dungannon and Armagh Meeke reigned supreme and stage by stage he extended his leading margin and took a deserved victory.

Donnelly extended his lead in the Irish Tarmac Championship to ten points over Mark Higgins, who

moved into the lead of the British Rally Championship.

Gywndaf Evans (Mitsubishi) came home in fifth place ahead of Colm Murphy (Subaru) who is on course to take the Irish Group N title.

Philip Morrow and James Cullen in Mitsubishi’s completed the top eight.

Conrad Rautenbach Citroen C2R2) won the Super1600 category.

1. K. Meeke/P. Nagle (Subaru WRC) 1h. 54m. 31.5s.

2. E. Donnelly/P. Kiely (Subaru WRC) 1h. 57m. 13.5s.

3. E. Boland/F. Regan (Subaru WRC) 1h. 59m. 16.0s..

4. M. Higgins/R. Kennedy (Subaru) 2h. 00m. 19.6s.

5. G. Evans/H. Lewis (Mitsubishi) 2h. 01m. 06.2s.

6. C. Murphy/G. Loughrey (Subaru) 2h. 04m. 28.7s.

7. P. Morrow/S. Morrow (Mitsubishi) 2h. 05m. 31.6s.

8. J. Cullen/R. Graham (Mitsubishi) 2h. 06m. 05.2s.

9. C. Rautenbach/D. Senior (Citroen C2R2) 2h. 07m.10.7s.

10. S. Ling/A. Rees (Mitsubishi) 2h. 07m. 22.1s.