Breen claims maiden SWRC Victory
World Rally Academy Champions Craig Breen and Gareth Roberts have secured their maiden SWRC win after a mature performance at this week's Rallye Monte-Carlo. The Irish/Welsh partnership taking on the iconic event for the first time showed maturity by driving a controlled event in their Ford Fiesta S2000 and took over the lead when category leader P-G Andersson (SWE, Proton Satria Neo S2000) retired on stage sixteen.
Moving up to the Super 2000, World Rally Championship for the 2012 season, Breen had to contend with varying weather conditions, as the famous Cote D'Azur event through its usual mix of wet and dry roads compounded by snow, fog and black ice. Tyre choice played a major factor but the Kel-Tech Engineering backed Fiesta had to endure multiple punctures over the opening three days as the rally rotated around its remote base in Valence at the foot of the French Alps.
The SWRC battle turned on its head on the rerun of stage sixteen, Moulinet - La Bollène Vésubie 2, when Proton driver P-G Andersson retired with a incar fire as a result of a fuel leak. Andersson's, Proton team mate Giandomenico Basso, had previously retired on day-one after an accident. With only three drivers registered for the Super 2000 World Championship taking part on the event Breen was left to pick up the pieces and continued his strategy of driving at a controlled pace and duly delivered his first victory in the SWRC.
"This is unbelievable, I'm just delighted and so happy with this victory. We came here with a plan and it's worked perfectly."
"Our task was made easier last night on stage 16 when P-G (Andersson, SWE) retired," Continued Breen, "It handing us the lead but this has been the toughest event of my career. We've had to contend with every type of weather imaginable, tyre choice has been a lottery throughout the five days, we were always making a compromise for the varying road surface on each loop of stages. I lost a lot of time over the first three days with punctures but in the end our strategy to drive a controlled event has paid off. The 'Monte' is just so technical, this is my first time to compete here, it's been repeated so many times that a driver needs to gain experience on this event, building a good set of 'notes' (pacenotes), building on what they learn from tackling the stages and I've learned so much over the last week. This is a great start to the season, we have 25 championship points heading to Sweden in February and having already done the event in a S2000 last year, hopefully there we'll be able to push from the start."
An essential element inside the car, 'Welsh Wizard' Roberts was relieved to see a successful finish and claim their first win of the year: "It's been a very long and gruelling event, including testing, recce and the five day rally you need to be fully focused. I did this event last year with a different driver, but Craig and I have forged a great partnership over the last three years, this collaboration culminated with the WRC Academy crown last year and now we've moved up the SWRC and this is a perfect start to the season."