Solid podium for Tom Cave

Welsh rally driver Tom Cave took a solid podium on the first round of the 2013 MSA British Rally Championship, the Pirelli Richard Burns Foundation Rally this weekend. Tom and co-driver Ieuan Thomas drove a considered event to avoid problems that befell other competitors to arrive at the finish at Carlisle Racecourse in third place.

His aim at the start of the event was to begin the season with a good points haul and the pace was frantic over the first loop of three stages. Overnight rain had made the fast gravel tracks in the Kielder forest slippery and treacherous and Finn Jukka Korhonen set the early pace, with Tom setting top five stage times in the morning.

However, he didn't have an easy run, catching a much slower car which was running as part of the BRC Challenge in the stage and dropping around 10 seconds in the last of the three stages.

Tom reverted to dry settings on his Morris Lubricants-supported Citroen DS3 R3 for the second loop of stages and adopted a conservative approach. As it transpired, this was the correct tactic, as many competitors began to suffer punctures in the rough conditions.

By the end of the first day, Tom and Ieuan were in second place, behind Korhonen and 10 seconds ahead of Alistair Fisher in another Citroen.

The second day of the event dawned dry but overcast and Tom knew that with the gap to fourth reasonably sizeable, a podium result would be possible if he was able to avoid any problems. He established a safe pace yet one that was fast enough to ensure he maintained focus and despite conceding second place to a charging Fisher, arrived at the finish ramp in third place and with a useful haul of points to kick-start his campaign for the season.

Commenting at the finish, Tom said; "I'm very pleased with this result. This event hasn't been too kind to me in the past and it isn't one where I have gone well before - I was ninth last year - so to find myself in second this morning was a pleasant surprise.

"It was a simple choice; push hard to try to keep Alistair behind and risk losing everything or back off and hopefully accept the points for third and that's what we decided to do. The conditions were very tricky - the grip level changed enormously in the stages and even though we'd backed off, we still had a massive moment on the last one. But we're looking at the whole championship and this is a great start for us, so I'm very happy.

"I was a little unhappy to lose the time when we caught the Challenge car on the third stage yesterday - that might have changed things a little - but there's no point in dwelling on it. It's been a very good event; Ieuan and I worked very well together, the car was perfect all weekend and we've got the season off to a great start.

"It's also a perfect start for the Morris Lubricants DMS Team, which is part of the BRC Team Cup. The support from Morris Lubricants and the work the Davies Motorsport Services team have done has been invaluable and I am very grateful to both."

The next round of the series takes the competitors north of the border for the Jim Clark Rally, the first of the season's asphalt events, in four weeks' time. The UK's only closed public road event is a favourite for Tom - he was second in 2012 - and the narrow tarmac roads will present an entirely different challenge for the crews.