Rally Germany throws up challenges for Brendan

Day 1 of Rally Germany didn't quite go to plan for Brendan and Rhianon with a series of mishaps on the tricky tarmac stages costing them huge amounts of time. The Aussie brother-sister team now face a real test on the event's second day to climb back up the leaderboard and try and grab some valuable Championship points.

Rally Germany is round four of the six-round World Rally Championship (WRC) Academy, and Brendan went into the event in equal second place in the overall standings. Despite a good test event two weeks ago in Belgium, the German roads proved to be as unforgiving as expected, and Brendan was up against it from the day's very first stage.

 

On SS1, an 'off' on a very narrow sharp right hander about half way through the stage cost Brendan six minutes. He also lost time on the following stage and any chance of making it up on SS3 was eroded when the stage was cancelled.

 

With time to re-group at the lunch break, Brendan took the first afternoon stage, a re-run of the day's opener, easy to try and get into a good rhythm. He set some excellent split times during the afternoon to prove his speed but when he nudged a rock wall just 5km from the finish of SS6, the steering on the front end of his Ford Fiesta R2 was bent and he had to limp home.

Despite currently sitting at the end of the Academy field, Brendan has been in this position before and has been able to work his way back up the leaderboard. He will go into Day 2 of Rally Germany with a positive attitude as he knows anything can happen to those at the front of the field. If he can salvage some decent points from the event all will not be lost in his aim for Championship honours at the conclusion of the WRC Academy series.

Visit Brendan's Photo Gallery for photos from Rally Germany