by Rob Wilkins
Three-time British Rally champion, Mark Higgins believes that it is essential that he takes a couple more wins in the BRC this season if he is to beat Guy Wilks and Gwyndaf Evans and successfully defend his title.
Higgins took his second BRC win of the season recently on the Ulster International Rally, a result that moved him to the top of the standings, 3 points in front of his Stobart TEG Sport team-mate, Wyn Humphries.
Despite now enjoying an 18 point lead over Wilks though, and a 17 point lead over Evans, Mark is more than aware that with only five scores counting from the seven events - Rally GB counts as two - it is all still very, very open.
“We do need to win a couple more rallies really to make it certain [that we will win the title again],” Mark told
Crash.net Radio last week.
“The way the championship works this year it is very difficult, as you drop two scores from seven.
“Although we have got a good lead then and it looks quite promising at the moment, we still really need to have two wins because if Guy goes out and wins the next two and gets a second or whatever, he has actually won the championship.
“As such it is all very much to play for. Gwyndaf could still win the championship too if he gets three wins from now on.
“So although reliability is very important - and it is looking at the leaderboard at the moment - when it comes to it at the final round it could all change around very quickly.”
Asked about the last event in Ireland, Higgins added that his win there was very important: “We had to turn things around because we have had a hard time with the Mitsubishis this year,” he explained.
“Guy has obviously been very fast and so has Gwyndaf. We just haven't really been able to match them, but TEG Sport did a lot of work on the car. We have increased the performance of the car quite a lot and for the first time we were actually able to take the fight to the Mitsubishis.
