Two more challenging stages, Banbridge and Gregorlough, will follow a brief respite for the drivers at the Hillsborough Regroup, before the finish at the Titanic Quarter in Belfast. Following the retirement of Robert Barrable on stage 15 Craig Breen now has a bit of a breathing space. However, it is not a lot as Polish driver Kajetan Kajetanowicz is just 19s behind and a lot can happen in 2 stages. Josh Moffett looks fairly settled in 3rd place, as his brother Sam is 37s further back. Swedish driver Emil Bergkvist continues to lead the Junior category in his Opel Adam R2 but is coming under increasing pressure from Griebel Marijan also in an Opel Adam, and just 9s behind after SS15. Chris Ingram is 3rd but has not been able to make any impression on the 2 flying Opels in front.
The latest retirement we have is that Swedish driver Mattias Adielsson, whose Peugeot 208 was towed in here to service showing light front and rear damage. Eugene Meegan was running in the National Rally with Sarah Whelan co-driving and their new BMW 1 series was well in the hunt, but has just cried enough at the end of stage 15 because of transmission trouble.
In the National Rally Derek McGarrity now has over 2m of a lead on Kenny McKinstry, both in Subarus. Wesley Patterson is in 3rd and leading the Escorts from Keith White.
Rob Duggan is still doing a great job to hold 5th o/a and Frank Kelly has improved from an overnight 10th to 6th. Frank was frank in admitting yesterday that he was still mentally recovering from his monumental accident on the Midlands Rally. Paddy McVeigh is running in SuperRally today having retired yesterday because of a hole in his Subaru radiator. He is setting 3rd fastest times this afternoon and looking very comfortable in his recently acquired Impreza WRC. Geoff McMahon continues to lead GpN in his Lancer and Stanley Orr leads the Historics. Stanley said at the end of that Bulls Brook stage. `This is one great rally`. Keith White remarked that his Escort gearbox was getting very noisy and he also had just fixed a broken engine mounting.
More news later: BRIAN & LIZ PATTERSON & MICHAEL & ZOE PATTERSON www.rallynews.net *Follow RallyNews on Twitter @Pacenotes or @Real_RallyNews
