by Rob Wilkins
The Mitsubishi UK ‘works’ team did the double this year in the Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship, taking the teams’ title and the drivers’ with lead driver, Guy Wilks.
Crash.net Radio caught up with team boss, Paul Brigden recently to chat about the year and 2008…
Crash.net:
Paul, first up congratulations - it has been a great season for the Mitsubishi UK ‘works’ team. How happy were you with the year?
Paul Brigden:
Absolutely spot on really. We had a dream team with Guy and Gwyndaf [Evans] this year and ADR have done a fantastic job on the cars. Guy vindicated our decision to wait for him to join us because he scored a maximum five out of five. Great news, 100 points - you can’t do any better than that. And the teams championship as well, which is obviously my primary goal, it was just a superb season.
Crash.net:
You've been trying for a while to do that double, how sweet was it to finally achieve it?
PB:
It was fantastic. It was a bit of a nervous Rally GB for us. Friday leg one, which was basically round six of the BRC, sort of saw us there with the teams' championship - as long as both cars came out of parc ferme on the Sunday - and then obviously it was the nerves of making sure that Guy got through. But he drove to a plan and all credit to him, he didn’t take any risks and was still the fastest driver by a long way - so that was great - and he took the PWRC win on that round as well.
Crash.net:
That must have been quite a nice bonus…
PB:
That was fantastic for him. He's a top driver; I believe he's the best in the UK at the moment so he needs to get a break at world level. Hopefully next year he'll sort something out and prove to everyone what he's capable of.
Crash.net:
How impressed were you with Guy’s contribution this year?
PB:
He's been a great asset to us. His technical feedback in testing has been superb and he's gone about his business very well. He won five rounds out of seven and his fastest stage times say it all - he had more fastest stage times than the rest of the competitors put together.
Crash.net:
Wilks’ team-mate, Gwyndaf Evans also had a pretty good year and showed good pace, despite being dogged a bit by a few technical issues. Were you happy with his input?
