ends Tom Cave’s class domination in Poland

The second leg of this weekend’s Rally Poland came to an early end for Tom Cave, when the head gasket on his Group N Ford Fiesta ST failed and he and co-driver Craig Parry were forced to retire from the leg. This was a particularly bitter blow, since Cave’s lead of the N3 class had grown to more than four minutes by the start of the third stage of the day as the 17 year-old settled into the Polish stages.

Cave was second fastest in N3 and the field of Fiestas on the day’s opening timed test, just 2.1secs slower than Patrick Anglade. However, on the following stage, he was again fastest, as he was six times on the first leg, setting a time almost 30 seconds faster than the nearest N3 competitor. Problems for Emre Yurdakul on the first stage meant that after two tests, Cave and Parry held a class lead of more than four minutes, heading into the last of the morning’s states, the 30Km Widnimy test.

Unfortunately, Cave’s domination of the class would end on that stage. The engine temperature gauge had began to climb approaching the stage start and the crew were forced to stop in the stage several times to top up the engine water, losing some ten minutes in the process. Mindful of the damage potential, he limped to the end of the stage, where he could speak to the team for advice.

At the stage end, the team recommended the crew return to the service area, with a very careful eye on the temperature gauge and topping up the engine coolant where necessary, from reserves carried in the car. At service, the team found and removed a faulty thermostat. The car was sent out for the next loop of stages but again, began overheating and the team decided to retire the car and investigate the problem further rather than risk more damage.

Once the car was returned to the service park, it was discovered that the head gasket had in fact failed. With plenty of time to rectify the problem under SupeRally regulations, the team removed the cylinder head and replaced the gasket, checking that there was no further damage. This would at least allow Tom to return to the stages on Sunday, the final day and maximise his experience and potentially regain some of the lost time, should any of his competitors suffer further problems.

However, with the SupeRally time penalties of five minutes per stage missed and the ten minutes lost on SS10, he is classified as 38th overall at the end of the second leg and 7th in class N3, 20 minutes adrift of the leader, Anglade.

Speaking at the end of the day, Tom said: “Of course, I’m gutted that the head gasket failed when we were doing so well. We had chosen a pace this morning that we felt was stable without taking too many risks and everything felt fantastic. We were very pleased with the times this morning and were hoping for another clean and tidy day, which would hopefully put us in a good position for the final leg.

“However, it wasn’t to be. When I saw the temperature gauge going up, I knew we had to back right off, keep the coolant level topped up and just get to the end of the stage without causing any damage. The team recommended driving back to service slowly and we did this, keeping an eye on the gauge all the time. They tried to resolve the problem, which was caused by the faulty thermostat but by that point, the gasket had obviously failed and that was the end of our day.

“Andy [Davies] and the guys from Davies Motorsport spent the afternoon replacing the head gasket, with a lot of help from M-Sport, which runs the FSTi and to whom I’m incredibly grateful. I’m also extremely grateful to Team Abu Dhabi and Castrol Ford Team Turkiye, as they were very helpful when it came to removing the engine to change the gasket. Without the help of our fellow competitors and M-Sport, we would not have been able to carry on.

“The car looks to be OK for us to restart tomorrow for the final five stages and we’ll use those to refine our notes, get as much mileage on the car as we can and who knows, maybe end up with a decent placing yet!”

The final day of the even sees the crews tackle four stages totalling 88Km before a second run around the Mikolajki superspecial to end the event.