Dominant Donnelly victorious
They had a 39-second winning margin over the similar Subaru WRC of overseas crew Jim Harrison/Harvey Bell, with defending Dunlop champions Niall Maguire/Paul McLaughlin, also in a Subaru WRC, finishing third. Championship leaders Michael Barrable/Dermot O’Gorman (Subaru WRC) were fourth.
Donnelly set the tone on the first stage near Cross Keys where his Kumho-shod Subaru WRC was four seconds ahead of Niall Maguire and Jim Harrison.
Gaining valuable seconds over the greasy stages, Donnelly brought a 10-second lead to the first service in Cavan. Harrison, who said that he was somewhat nervous following his crash on the Monaghan Rally, was a similar time-frame ahead of Maguire, who seemed satisfied with his early pace.
It was a different matter for Carlow winner Michael Barrable. He had to be content with fifth spot after an intermittent anti-lag system cost him valuable time. He was almost a minute off the pace and four behind David Armstrong’s Escort WRC.
Adrian McElvaney, on his debut with the ex-Kevin Barrett Subaru, was sixth from an off-form Alan Nesbitt.
Mac McKenna (Peugeot) and the Escorts of Paddy Boyle and Mervyn Wedlock were next in general classification.
Apart from the seventh stage, where he was joint quickest with Harrison, Donnelly dominated all the other stages to take the win.
Harrison, Maguire and Barrable completed the Subaru WRC rout along with Adrian McElvaney, who took his third fifth place in the Dunlop series. David Armstrong had to contend with alternator trouble on his way to sixth.
Trevor Moore (Escort Cosworth) won the Tour of Sperrins Rally, a counting round of the Northern Ireland Championship. He finished four seconds ahead of the Escort WRC of Glen Allen that had transmission trouble early in the rally.
Eugene Donnelly crashed his Toyota Celica on the third stage. The Derry driver was taken to hospital as a precautionary measure but was released almost instantly.
Continuing a remarkable sequence that has seen the pole-sitter win every round of the British Formula 3 championship, Brazilian Nelson Piquet Jr scored his second successive win in the series after he was pushed hard by Portadown’s Adam Carroll, who was making his debut with Menu Motorsport.
Piquet lost position to Robert Dahlgren and was subsequently overtaken by Carroll at the second corner. However, he regained second place into Stowe on the second lap. Dahlgren had to drive into the pits for a stop-go penalty for creeping on the grid. Piquet inherited the lead but had to fight hard to fend off Carroll’s challenge.
Danny Watts finished third while pre-event championship leader Alan van der Merwe was seventh. His Carlin Motorsport team-mate Jamie Green was hit by the car of Michael Keohane, who retired on lap six with Green eventually claiming 11th. Ernani Judice was another victim of the Keohane incident.
In tomorrow’s 10th round, Piquet is on pole from van der Merwe, Adam Carroll is on the third row but Keohane has a difficult task as he starts from the eighth row.
Matt Griffin was in superb form in the British GT Cup race where, along with his TECH9 team-mate Patrick Pearse, they finished almost three laps ahead of closest rivals Neil Cunningham/Keith Robinson (Morgan). Griffin, driving for an hour and 50 minutes of the three-hour race, set the fastest lap as they retained their lead in the series.
Another Cork driver, Robby Coleman, took his first podium finish in the German Formula BMW Championship at the Nurburgring. Starting off pole, he led the race over the first three laps until his car suffered brake difficulties that saw him lose ground and drop to third.
In Saturday’s race, Coleman came from 17th on the grid to finish 11th. Fellow Irish driver Michael Devaney (Team Roseberg) was second. In yesterday’s race, having climbed to sixth, he was forced to retire with suspension failure.
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