Enthusiasts enjoy thrills and spills at Circuit of Ireland

LOCAL drivers could only purr with approval as Esapekka Lappi became only the third Finn to win the Circuit of Ireland.

The Flying Finn produced an immaculate, masterful performance to spread-eagle the field as he dominant the rally from start to finish in his rugged S2000 Skoda Fabia to win by nearly two minutes from his German team-mate Sepp Wiegand, who snatched second place away from the Ford Fiesta of top Irish finisher Robert Barrable in the closing stages.

Local enthusiasts were spoilt for choice as to where they could get a piece of the action. Vantage points of Hamilton’s Folly in Liatroim, Bucks Head in Annadorn, Lough Henney in Boardmills, and Ballygowan were all taken by early morning.

Crowds then flocked to Downpatrick’s St. Patrick’s Square where the entire entry list were in full view to the general public.

The surprising thing was that Lappi was surprised by his victory. He genuinely didn’t anticipate it, not after he had been comprehensively outpaced by the new generation R5 Peugeot of Craig Breen in the previous European championship round in Greece and not after he’d experienced Irish tarmac stages for the first time during the pre-rally build up.

“I didn’t expect it. No, never,” he insisted, his face wreathed in smiles. “I mean, when we saw stages it felt so challenging you had to be so mad to fight with the guys in the R5s but somehow we managed to do that and I don’t know why.”

It just might have been because, as he said on Friday afternoon as he rattled off seven fastest times in a row to build an 18-second lead: “The car is good as always but here, on these stages, it’s not so much about the car, it’s about the driver. The stages are fast but technical and difficult, too. I really love them.”

And what a driver Esapekka is! Still just 23-years-old, he has already won in places as far apart as Australia and Poland, China and Switzerland and now Ireland, which he says ranks as the best yet.

“For sure, I think this is the best one so far, my first proper tarmac event and I won! Even against Craig Breen in his R5 Peugeot on his home soil I could beat him. I will keep [remember] our performance from Friday especially, I was quite proud of it.”

Rightly so, for, by mid-afternoon he had Breen on the back foot, the Acropolis Rally winner’s Peugeot starting to look fragile, two rear windscreens smashed, a rear bumper torn off as he pushed it harder and harder in an effort to keep up. It was all in vain, Breen following his team-mate Kevin Abbring out with what was termed “a sensor failure which shut down the engine”.

It looked very much like the overheating issue which sidelined Abbring from second place on Friday – and in Greece, too, where the Dutchman was leading. It is worrying times for Peugeot.

Skoda, on the other hand, left Ireland with another 1-2 finish, Wiegand grabbing second place when privateer Barrable overshot a junction on the penultimate stage and had to spin his Fiesta round in a field to regain the road. “It was a great battle and, unfortunately, I cracked first,” said Barrable, “but I still have to be happy with third.”

Even happier in sixth was Daniel McKenna who won the two-wheel-drive division on his debut outing in his Pirelli Star Driver Citroen DS3. The 25-year-old Clones driver was leading British champion Jukka Korhonen when the Finn crashed heavily and he finished FOUR minutes in front of reigning European 2WD Cup champion Zoltan Bessenyey.

A truly ‘star’ performance on a rally universally hailed as the best Circuit in decades. But it didn’t have the final twist which saw the Irish Tarmac championship national rally turned on its head in the final moments. It brought heartbreak for Garry Jennings who had victory snatched away with the finish literally in sight.

Tweets by @TheDownRecorder