Breen gears up for final World Rally Championship title shot

Waterford driver Craig Breen will this weekend battle it out to try and secure the World Rally Championship Academy title and a cheque for €500,000, when he competes at the Rally of Great Britain in Wales.

Breen is currently second in the Academy table going into the event which begins tomorrow afternoon (2:30pm) for the Academy with three stages in North Wales and continues with 8 stages on Friday and finishing with the final 6 stages on Saturday.

Breen, a former Motorsport Ireland Young Driver of the Year, has shown his class this year with one win and several podium finishes across the 5 events so far but will still need a victory at Rally GB to try and take the title from current leader, Egon Kaur from Estonia.

Kaur leads the Academy table by 20 points from Breen going into the last event with 25 points on offer for the winner at the weekend and another point up for grabs for every stage won on across the 17 stages.

The 21-year-old is looking forward to the event. "I'll going to Rally GB with only one strategy and that's to go all out. There's no big secret here as I've only got one option and that's to attack from the start. I know it's a big ask but the confidence is high. Of all the Academy events this year I'm the only driver to hold the rally lead, my one win came on Tarmac but on the gravel of Portugal and Finland I had the speed," Breen said.

"These events are different to Wales but the conditions we expect this weekend will be very like Rally Scotland. Plus Rally GB has been very good to me over recent seasons. Last year, I suffered problems on the first day in the S2000 but battled on to get a good result. Back in 2009 we also had to fight over the Welsh stages but I dug in and came away with the FSTi title. I've carried out extensive testing this week and I'm now fully prepared to give it everything," Breen said ahead of tomorrow's start.