Eugene Donnelly took the overall honours on the Philip White Tyres Ulster Rally Saturday - round six of the Kwik Fit Pirelli British Rally Championship and round seven of the Pirelli Irish championship.

In the process Donnelly broke Mark Higgins' run of four successive wins.

Donnelly though had to fight 'tooth and nail' with eventual runner-up, Tim McNulty over the final four stages. Going into the last 21 stage miles, just 16 seconds separated the two and on the first stage out of final service, Donnelly was quickest.

McNulty was faster on the next two however, but Donnelly rose to the challenge and beat McNulty over the final stage to secure victory by just 7.9 seconds. As such he has now extended his Pirelli Irish Championship lead over Derek McGarrity and McNulty with one round to go.

McGarrity finished third to take the final spot on the podium, while Eamon Boland was fourth ahead of the top Kwik-Fit Pirelli Championship points scorer Austin MacHale. Over the closing stages, MacHale had come under pressure from Matthew Wilson.

"He was pushing hard over those stages," said MacHale, "and I could so easily have lost it. On the final stage, which was run at 30 second intervals, we were seeded in amongst national runners and that cost me a lot, but we made it and it keeps the championship title race alive."

Sixth overall then was Matt Wilson who had tried hard to displace MacHale to take points away to benefit his team-mate and British Championship leader Mark Higgins.

"That was mega," said Wilson on his return to the BRC, after his accident on the Rally of Wales. "I've enjoyed my two days over here - it's just so good to be back and especially to have a fastest stage time [in SS15] when the Irish boys were still trying."

Peadar Hurson finished in seventh place with Mark Higgins scoring eighth overall but more importantly taking third placed points in the Kwik-Fit Pirelli series and he retains his lead in the British Championship. He had lost time on stage 13 when the propshaft broke and then more time on stage 14 which he had to limp through to reach service, but the Stobart team performed miracles to get the Ford Focus re-fettled for the final four stages and keep Higgins in the rally.

Rounding off the top ten were the Group N winners Seamus Leonard in ninth and Alan Nesbitt was tenth, but of most interest to the Kwik-Fit Pirelli series Production Cup runners was who would take top points after series leader Rory Galligan's demise. Going into the final loop of four stages Barry Clark had a 0.6 second advantage over Aaron MacHale, with David Higgins some 21 seconds adrift.

On the first stage out of service, Higgins was on a mission and took 14 seconds out of MacHale and 16 seconds out of Clark. On the next one he re-took the top points scoring position with a time faster by 15 seconds than Clark while MacHale saw his hopes cruelly dashed with a puncture in his Mitsubishi.

"It was the same wheel that punctured last night," he noted, "and on the same stage too!"

Higgins thus took the maximum points but Clark was pleased with second placed points ahead of MacHale.

Sadly, Clark's team-mate Lorna Smith failed to retain her current runner-up position in the Production Cup when her Subaru broke its steering two stages from the finish.

In total 30 cars were classified at the finish, 45 having started the event Friday.

The next PBRC event is the Trackrod Rally Yorkshire, which runs from October 8-9.