Autosportfoto

Breen leads ERC Circuit of Ireland after Evans’ early demise

Craig Breen leads on his return to the FIA European Rally Championship on the Circuit of Ireland, moving ahead with a stunning time on the final stage of the opening loop as Elfyn Evans hit mechanical problems.

First on the road after winning yesterday's Qualifying Stage, Evans was quickest on the first two stages of the rally - despite reporting a power steering problem at the end of the second test - but then suffered an overheated engine on his Ford Fiesta R5 on SS3 The Glens, bringing his rally to an end.

Prior to that, Breen had been second but with less than a second in hand over his 2015 rival Kajetan Kajetanowicz. He produced a fantastic drive on the 31.21-kilometre SS3 however to build an advantage of exactly 25 seconds, arriving at the finish with a huge smile on his face and describing it as "the best bit of tarmac in the world".

Local favourite Alastair Fisher is third, 4.6 seconds behind Kajetanowicz. Fredrik Åhlin made an understandably cautious start to his first asphalt rally since 2012 but certainly didn't hold back on SS3, where he climbed from 10th to fourth place, tied on time with another native Martin McCormack, who's going well on his home stages in a Super 2000-specification ŠKODA Fabia.

ERC regular Jaromír Tarabus has had an encouraging start to the first event of his 2016 campaign, sitting seventh behind Josh Moffett. Jonny Greer rose to eighth to SS3 in front of Sam Moffett, while David Bogie rounds out the top 10.

Triple British champion and Irish points leader Keith Cronin was expected to be among the contenders but was sidelined early in the first stage by an overheating engine after an off. His fellow Citroën driver Robert Consani suffered further misfortune on SS1 with a broken driveshaft forcing him out. Federico Della Casa and Neil Simpson were reported to have both crashed out at the same point early in SS3.

Zdroj: fiaerc.com