KEITH Cronin didn't have the outcome he wanted or needed in last weekend's Carlisle Rally, the second round of the Probite British Rally Championship where he finished fourth overall.
The event was won by the reigning Junior World Rally champions Romet Jurgenson and Siim Oja (Ford Fiesta Rally2) who secured their first-ever rally victory. The Estonians finished 14.4 seconds ahead of the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 of opening round winners William Creighton/Liam Regan (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2).
Welsh driver Garry Pearson (Ford Fiesta Rally2) and co-driver Hannah McKillop were 50.9s further behind and 9.8 seconds ahead of the Citroen C3 Rally2 of Cronin and co-driver Mikie Galvin.
Jurgenson was quickest on the short opening stage, 1.1 seconds ahead of the Citroen C3 Rally2 of Max McRae, whose grandfather Jimmy is the BRC record holder with five titles. Creighton and Cronin followed, the latter 2.1 seconds off top spot. Creighton punched in the best time on SS2 to move into top spot, 1.1 seconds ahead of Jurgenson. McRae retired after the stage finish due to an engine issue.
Jurgenson regained the lead on SS3 but Creighton was just 0.2 of a second behind. Cronin was third quickest to close to within a fraction of a second of third-placed Pearson as they headed for the service park.
The fourth and penultimate stage proved decisive with Cronin and Creighton both dropping time. With such fine margins through the opening three stages, another stage win pushed Jurgenson 13.5 seconds clear as Creighton overshot a chicane and lost about 13 seconds.
Cronin's time loss was even more acute when his Citroen cut out mysteriously and haemorrhaged some 40 seconds before it fired back into action. Crucially, any opportunity of third place had evaporated. The top four positions remained unchanged on the final stage.
‘Fourth was the best we could have hoped for after what happened on the second last stage,’ Cronin admitted, and the fact that Jurgenson won wasn't lost on the Ballylickey driver.
‘We got as many points as possible, it's good for our championship hopes that it's Romet (Jurgenson) that won, rather than Will (Creighton) taking another maximum score.'
In championship terms Creighton leads the series with 43 points from Jurgenson (33 points) with Cronin third on 30 points. Interestingly, Cronin is actually in a better situation than he was a year ago at this point in the series when he had only accumulated ten points from two events. His next BRC outing is the Jim Clark Rally in Scotland (May 23rd), an event he won last year.
