2010 Hankook Junior Driver winner Jonny Leonard has just sent us his teams report from the 2011 Ulster Rally.

2010 Hankook Prize drive winner Jonny Leonard undertook only his second international rally at the weekend.

The 20 year old Ballinamallard man took to the stages of the Ulster Rally NI back onboard his ST fiesta, having given the car a complete overhaul to try and eliminate the mechanical gremlins suffered in earlier events.

There were two big changes to the team this time around as there was a new sponsor welcomed onboard in event security specialists Samdec Security Ltd and also a new co-driver for the event in BRC regular Paul Beaton.

“Paul was a great help with making my own pace notes, He is very experienced and brought with him some valuable knowledge.”

Although the BRC challenge is where most of the ST Fiesta drivers were competing Jonny opted to contest the full international event. In essence this rally was all about gaining experience and seeking to improve his recce technique and pace notes.

“The plan from the outset was to do a thorough recce of the stages, pick a steady pace on the event and build confidence.”

And Jonny did just that, Friday was all about getting used to a new co-driver and building a good relationship in the car. By Saturday morning the crew had acclimatised well and started to improve their pace, this was reflected on the time sheets as the little ST started to climb the leader board.

In class R2 there was some extremely tough competition, with the flying twingo’s, C2R2’s and the latest fiesta R2 model. It was a case of extracting the maximum from the car and gauging the performance against the newer machines.

“On some stages we averaged around 1.4 seconds per mile down on the leading R2 cars” this was no mean feat in the aging ST.

“Comparing the stages times with the ST’s competing in the Challenge section of the event we were averaging 30-40 seconds faster per stage and our times would have been good enough to win that part of the event outright.”

The car ran perfectly over the two days, and the partnership with new co-driver Paul Beaton was working well.

Having driven a faultless rally all weekend Jonny and Paul were extremely disappointed as the car left the road on the second last stage of the day.

“Although this was not the desired finish to any rally we have to look at the positives. It was encouraging to be close to the leading R2 cars and

my pace notes have improved in just one event. I will continue to work on these aspects of my rallying and I am confident the consistency will come.”

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