South coast rally driver Steve Hendy was thwarted in his efforts on the Flanders Rally by an electrical problem which halted his rally progress at the weekend.

Steve was competing against rally legends such as Freddy Loix and Patrick Snijers in the two day event which featured 24 high speed stages.

For Hendy and co-driver Aled Davies, the electrical problem on their Focus WRC was on top of a puncture on the very first high speed test of the event after the pair hit a kerb.

“I cut a corner just a bit too tightly at high speed and although the Hankook tyre lasted another five km we lost time and dropped down the leaderboard,” said Steve. “The tyre took so long to go down that I thought we had survived the incident but that was not the case.”

On the following stages the pair quickly climbed the leaderboard only to be forced into retirement by an electrical problem.

“We had some warning when the dashboard was just flashing but while the car was performing we carried on but eventually the car cut out and we could not get it going again,’’ said Steve.

Despite the disappointment of the weekend Steve and Aled are now gearing up for another foray abroad. They will take part in the Haspengouw Rally next month, a round of the Belgian National Rally Championship.