With Wilks now over a minute behind Higgins, and with the weather turning worse, the fight for the lead was pretty much over and whilst the pair traded fastest stage times throughout the rest of the day Higgins eventually returned to Armagh with an advantage of 62 seconds to take his third tarmac victory of the year.
Evans soldiered on to finish third on his return to the works team but further back the drama continued. Young Darren Gass had been impressing on his home event and had been up to fourth position until he slid into a bank and suffered a low speed roll. This allowed Phillip Morrow to take the position, one which the reigning Mitsubishi Evo Champion was to hold to the end. Considering the mental ordeal of the past few weeks this was a major boost to the youngster and he was fittingly awarded the Pirelli Star Driver Award.
David Higgins had struggled with handling issues on his Subaru Impreza all weekend. But by finishing fifth, he maintains his position at the top of the leaderboard although the Ulster marks the first time this year that the Manxman has not stood on the podium.
Brian O’Mahony enjoyed a strong run to clinch Class R3 honours but finished just over a minute behind Sebastian Ogier who was contesting the rally in a Citroen C2R2 Max. The C2 Max is a quicker and better handling version of the C2R2 which has its own championship in both Ireland and the UK, and the Ulster was the first time the two series had gone head to head. Martin McCormack finally took his maiden victory, but was shadowed the whole way by young Welshman Jason Pritchard. By finishing third in the British C2R2cup Andrew Hockridge extends his lead of the championship with only 3 rounds still remaining.
In class R1 Ross Forde took a popular home win but it was cruel luck again in the Suzuki camp as Henri Catchpole rolled his Swift on the very last stage, dropping from second to fourth and allowing round 1 winner Gordon Nichol to nab the runner up spot on his first visit to the island.
