KEITH Cronin will begin his Probite British Rally Championship campaign on Sunday's East Riding Stages Rally in Beverly (Yorkshire) where he will debut his recently acquired Citroen C3 Rally2.
With the postponement of the Galway International Rally at the beginning of the month due to storm damage, Sunday's ten-stage (54 miles) event will mark the Ballylickey driver’s debut outing in the French marque as he continues the ‘Drive for Five’ to equal Jimmy McRae's record of five BRC titles.
‘Two days in Galway would have taught us a lot about it before we go to the East Riding Stages, even though the road surfaces will be quite different in Yorkshire,’ Cronin said.
Like many others, he is hoping that Galway will run at some stage this year, but for now, it is all about Sunday.
‘It (Galway postponement) means that our learning curve may be a bit steeper on Sunday, however all the Rally2 cars are built to fairly tight regulations, there aren't huge differences between them. We'll have done a couple of tests and Tom Gahan Motorsport has experience of the set-up options for running the C3 on Michelin tyres,’ Cronin explained.
Last year's BRC runner-up Moira's William Creighton looks to be his principal rival on Sunday. Like Cronin, he has also switched from a Ford Fiesta Rally2 but has opted for a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2.
‘I'm not setting any targets, but it would be important to get a good result this weekend if we're to have a chance of landing the British title at the end of the year. We had a dreadful start last year, the first two events didn't go well at all and we never recovered from it, so I'd be hoping that we'd get off on a better footing this time,’ Cronin added.
Creighton along with Welsh ace Meirion Evans is part of the Castrol Melvyn Evans Motorsport (MEM) team while last year's Junior World Champion, Estonian Romet Jurgenson will drive a Ford Fiesta Rally2 under the M-Sport Ford banner. The opening stage starts at 9.23am and the event is due to finish around 3.30pm.
