Yorkshire: BRC Juniors preview

BRC Juniors jostle for position

As the final round of the 2010 Dulux Trade MSA British Rally Championship is just over a week away, it is not only the overall front-runners for whom the pressure is building. With its new Scarborough base, International Rally Yorkshire will see the culmination of the battle for the Junior Championship, drivers hoping to take a coveted Motor Sports Association gold flag at the end of season awards ceremony.

The junior drivers have had a great season so far in their two wheel drive cars, with three of them inside the top ten overall standings. On 38 points apiece are newcomers to the series Finnish Jarkko Nikara and Ulsterman Mark Donnelly. They trail Elfyn Evans in both Junior and overall standing, but it has been a hotly contested season for the youngsters, with three different winners in the under 25's category.

Nikara actually came within a point of Evans before the last round in Ulster, but an off whilst pushing hard in his Twingo has dropped him behind Donnelly, who trails the Welshman by nine points.

Fellow Citroen drivers Robert Barrable and Molly Taylor round off the top five in the Juniors. Of the pair only Barrable is able to join the top three in the fight for the title although both Irishman and Aussie lady driver failed to finish last time.

However it is Molly Taylor who could have the upper hand on the fast North Yorkshire stages, as she is the only one of the Junior front-runners with experience of the event. She made her UK rally debut back in 2008 at the wheel of a Suzuki Swift and could have taken the one make series title on her return last year, but for a broken fuel pump.

Adding further spice to the title fight will be two Fiesta drivers, John MacCrone and Mikko Pajunen, the former hoping to seal runners up spot in the Fiesta SportTrophy, while the latter already has a Pirelli Star Driver nomination and switches from his Suzuki to mix it with the more powerful Rally 2 class cars on this event for the first time.

Whatever happens in the battle for Junior honours, two new Pirelli Star Driver finalists could well add their names to the roster for the end of season shootout. The winners of both Citroen Racing Trophy and Swift Sport Cup Junior categories are set to take automatic places in the final for a fully funded drive in the 2011 Dulux Trade MSA British Rally Championship.

-source: brc