Monday 2 March 2015

Wright focused on rally return


After a break of a year Bentham-based rally driver David Wright will make his return to rallying on next weekend’s Malcolm Wilson rally, a round of the BTRDA championship. 

Wright will drive a GPM-prepared Ford Focus WRC which was originally driven by Carlos Sainz in the World Rally Championship. The car will be supported by Kumho Tyres and Grove Hill Garage. 

It will be Wright’s first competitive event since last year’s Malcolm Wilson rally although he debuted the Focus at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. 

“Unfortunately work commitments meant rallying had to take a back seat in 2014,” said Wright. “We did a few runs at Goodwood with the Focus last June but we’ve not had time to do any testing since then so it will be a pretty steep learning curve at the weekend. The car is a big step up in performance from our previous Mitsubishi Evo 9 and there are a lot of different settings to get to grips with.”

“Our aim for the event is to get plenty of mileage in the car so we’ll be driving for a finish but I’m sure my co-driver Michael Wilkinson will be pushing us on! The rally uses some of my favourite stages and it’s one I have had some good results on in the past so hopefully we will get our season off to a good start.”

Wright is planning on contesting further BTRDA championship rounds this year and he has also received an invitation to bring the Focus, in its works Martini colour scheme, to the Goodwood Festival of Speed again.