Colossal turnaround for Tom Cave on Wales Rally GB

The second leg, and first full day, of the 2013 Wales Rally of Great Britain saw a complete turnaround for Welsh rally driver Tom Cave. Having lost time and incurred penalties on the first three night stages of the event, the 21-year old set the fastest stage time in the WRC2 category on five of the six stages which made up the first full day of competition on the finale of the 2013 FIA World Rally Championship.

Following the revitalised ceremonial start in front of Conwy castle, the crews faced three stages in complete darkness to begin the event on Thursday night. The tricky conditions immediately caught Tom and co-driver Ieuan Thomas out, with Tom missing his braking point for a hairpin bend and overshooting, necessitating reversing to regain the road.

Following this, Tom adopted a conservative approach, to make sure that he and Ieuan reached the MSL Motorsport service area in their Morris Lubricants-supported Ford Fiesta R5 intact and with no further problems.

However, it transpired that a heavy impact in the Penmachno stage, the last of the night-time tests, had caused a crack and subsequent leak in the Ford Fiesta R5's gearbox. A change was necessary and this took 26 minutes longer than the available service time, leading to lateness penalties and adding 4m20s to their total time, dropping them well down the order.

The first full day of competition dawned gloomy but dry and consisted of two loops of three stages in mid-Wales, all tests Tom knew well from his previous four editions of the rally.

He and Ieuan immediately set the pace, claiming the WRC category win on the Hafren and Sweet Lamb stages and third-fastest on the Myherin stage, to arrive at the remote service in Newtown having climbed from 45th overnight to 22nd in just three stages.

Following a routine service in Newtown, the crews returned to the same three stages and Tom went one better in the afternoon, claiming the WRC2 class stage win on each of the three stages, ahead of Ford regular Elfyn Evans and team-mate, former multiple BRC Champion, Mark Higgins.

By the end of the first full day of competition they had climbed up to 15th overall and seventh in WRC2, from tenth and last.

Commenting, Tom said; "Of course, it was really frustrating to firstly make a mistake on the very first stage of the rally and then, damage the gearbox when we had a hard impact in the third stage. I guess there is some conciliation in that others, including Thierry Neuville, hit the same thing and also had to repair transmissions.

"It was even more frustrating to pick up so much penalty time with the lateness as the team replaced the gearbox but I started this morning knowing that the chances of a result were slim, so the plan was simply to drive as fast as I felt comfortable with, enjoy myself and see what sort of pace we could establish.

"I didn't expect to win five of today's six stages, that's for sure. I really found my mojo today, particularly this afternoon and felt that I could drive at that pace all day. I could have done another 30Km stage when we arrived at the end of Myherin but that's probably enough for one day.

"I'm really pleased to have climbed up to 15th overall and 7th in class after where we were last night. The plan for the next two days is more of the same; enjoy ourselves, have a big push and see what we can achieve by the end of the event."

The second full day sees a further seven stages, run as three loops but crucially, with no service between the cars leaving in the morning and arrive back at service at around 4pm.