Osian Pryce was pleased to reach the finish of JDS Machinery Rali Ceredigion last weekend while securing a solid third and fourth-placed double header bag of Probite British Rally Championship.
The Machynlleth ace, alongside co-driver Rhodri Evans, had to wrestling his often-disobedient Ford Fiesta Rally2 against top FIA European and British rally championship competition, costing them a potential overall podium finish with seventh their reward.
Pryce claimed third-place BRC points thanks to an eighth-place overall finish on leg one.
Saturday was a long day over 77.24 stage miles with Pryce setting a third fastest time over the first running on the signature Nany y Moch stage.
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Unfortunately, understeer continued to be a problem and contributed to Pryce clipping a bank early on SS12 on the final day and had to be content with fourth-placed BRC points and coming home seventh overall.
“We just haven’t been able to find that extra one percent that we need to fight at the top this weekend,” said Pryce. “It doesn’t sound much, but if you’re one percent down on every corner then that equates to quite a gap by the end of a long event like Rali Ceredigion – and it’s why we’ve ended about forty seconds away from the podium.
“There have been some good bits that we are happy with, but it’s frustrating that we weren’t able to crack the code and get us to where we wanted to be. I’m happy to have finished unscathed, but it’s a case of what might have been.
“To be fair to everyone in the Dom Buckley RSC team, they tried absolutely everything they could think of to find a solution. It’s not a major issue, but it’s that little sweet spot that you need at this level that just wasn’t there this time. I’ve even compared our on-board videos from last year where we were on rails to this year, and you can see that we were understeering and running out of road this weekend even when we weren’t going quite as fast.
“I think our challenge for the title is pretty much over for this year and Rali Ceredigion will probably be my last rally of 2024. It might be a slightly longer off-season than we’d planned.”
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