Sara seeking home glory on Severn Valley Stages

One of the UK’s fastest female rally drivers, Sara Williams, picked up the pace in her KLARIUS Group backed Subaru Impreza GpN to finish the Severn Valley
Stages a fantastic 5th overall, picking up a podium position 2nd in class on the Pirelli Welsh National Rally Championship round.

After struggling with mechanical woes on the last round of the championship, the SJR Plains Rally, the car underwent a substantial amount of work by Geoff
Jones and the team at GJM, who are charged with preparing the 4wd car, which included a full gearbox rebuild.

“We finished the car at the beginning of the week but during a small shakedown soon realized it was down on power” said Sara. “Geoff and the guys looked in to
what the issue could’ve been and discovered a timing belt had slipped after the car jammed in gear on the Plains – with that put right the car ran faultlessly all day”.

As Sara’s home event, she’s had plenty of experience in the forests around the Epynt ranges and put the experience to good use, co-driven by Dai Roberts.

After the opening test, a run through Crychan Forest, Sara found herself in the thick of the action, lying in 5th place overall just 11 seconds adrift of Michael  O’Brien in his much more powerful Ford Focus WRC but also being chased hard by Dan O’Brien, son of Michael, just 2 seconds back in a similarly spec’d Ford
Focus WRC.

Dropping behind O’Brien Jr. in the following stage over Route 60, Sara wasn’t going to give up easily maintaining a gap of just 2 tenths of a second but had
to concede that the Focus was much more powerful over the following stages, waiting to strike should any of the frontrunners encounter problems.

“We did well to keep up with Dan in the first loop of stages. Not only is the Focus more powerful, it’s also got a lot more driver aids which really enhance the
handling and speed of the car.

“We weren’t going to give up without a fight and we still had to consider Martin Cairns was only 6 seconds behind us in an identical Subaru to ours”.

Over the following stages, which included a spectator friendly around the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells, Sara and Dai managed to maintain a small
gap of just 8 seconds to Dan O’Brien. The pair managed to close the gap back up to just 3 seconds when the action returned to the forest, whilst maintaining a
lead of over 10 seconds back to Cairns.

“It was really tight at the top throughout the day but in the last stage, SS9, Michael O’Brien retired. It promoted us up to 5th overall and really helped our championship points.”

Returning to Builth Wells for the prize giving, Sara and Dai were delighted to pick up a class podium and are looking forward to their next event together.

Sara is supported by Klarius Group, Brecon Motors, Brecon Car Rentals, Ian Jones Tyres, Woodford Trailers and Millers Oils. You can keep up to date with
all her news, results and photos by visiting her website, www.sararally.com or following her on Twitter @SaraRally

Photo Credit: David Benson/RallySport Media