Solid podium for Tom Cave in Scotland

Welsh rally driver Tom Cave claimed a solid podium finish on the RSAC Scottish Rally this weekend, the third round of the 2013 MSA British Rally Championship. Driving his Morris Lubricants DMS Team Citroen DS3 and partnered by Ieuan Thomas, the 21 year-old set the early running, leading the event after three stages but slipped back in the afternoon, as he struggled to find the right rhythm on the rough Scottish gravel roads and eventually finished third.

The event was returning to the BRC after a seven year hiatus and therefore, the fast and flowing stages would be new to virtually the entire field. A wet recce gave way to a dryer rally, albeit with standing water on many of the gravel roads that made up the route, with nine stages scheduled for the one-day event.

Tom and Ieuan were running second on the road but set their stall out early, claiming the win on the first timed test of the event, ahead of Alastair Fisher and Jukka Korhonen. Fisher beat Tom on the second and this was reversed on the third, with Tom and Alastair on exactly the same overall time after three stages.

The next loop of three was a repeat of the first and Tom split Fisher and Korhonen on the first two and was third on stage six, arriving at service in second place, just 4.8 seconds behind Fisher and 12secs ahead of Korhonen.

However, it was the third and final loop of stages that would cause the problems. Despite having established what Tom felt was an excellent set-up for the car at a pre-event test, he was simply unable to get the right rhythm on the longer stages and dropped 12s to Fisher and 10 to Korhonen on the first.

He was ready to defend his position and attempt to make up lost time on stage eight, the penultimate stage but the organisers opted to cancel it in an attempt to minimise the late running of the event following an incident earlier in the day, so he and Ieuan were left with just 13.2 miles of the Clatteringshaws stage to retake the advantage.

As it transpired, the fast Finn put in a flier - Korhonen went through almost five seconds faster than Fisher and 13s quicker than Tom, to leapfrog him into second place. By the end of the event, Tom and Ieuan had claimed their third podium finish in as many events, as the series arrives at its midpoint.

Commenting, Tom said; "This was a very frustrating event for me. I was very pleased with our pace to begin with, particularly when you consider that Alastair is one of the quickest drivers in the WRC-3 series and we were trading times with him - the closest we have been this season - and quicker than Jukka.

"But then in the afternoon, on the longer stages, I simply couldn't get the same rhythm in the car that we had in the morning. I felt that I couldn't commit to the corners in the same way I did earlier but couldn't figure out why. There was nothing wrong with the notes, with the way Ieuan was delivering them, the car - nothing I could put my finger on. I just didn't have the feeling.

"It's not the event I wanted to have and certainly, not where I wanted to be after three rallies. But we have a break now until Ulster and I will be heading to Northern Ireland to win the event - nothing else will do. It will be a tall order - Alastair is bound to be very quick there and Jukka went very well on the Jim Clark but that's what I will be pushing for.

"And with DMS giving us a perfect car for the rally again and the support from Morris Lubricants, I know we will have the best possible chance to achieve that."

The series now has a two-month break, with the fourth round returning to tarmac for the Todds Leap Ulster Rally at the end of August. Tom will be buoyed by his performance on the first tarmac event, the Jim Clark Rally, where he pushed Korhonen all the way to the finish line, as the series enters the second half of the season.