Pirelli driver Fredrik Ahlin delivered a brilliant home victory for the company on the Pirelli Carlisle Rally, a result that propels the Swedish star into the lead of the British Rally Championship.
It was the perfect result for Pirelli as it marks 25 years of title sponsorship on the rally. The event began on Saturday with a ceremonial start at Pirelli’s Carlisle factory, coinciding with a family day for employees.
Driving a Ford Fiesta R5 for the Carlisle-based CA1 Sport team, Ahlin shadowed early leader Elfyn Evans through the first couple of stages and then moved ahead when the world championship driver suffered a puncture on SS3.
Leading by 7.3 seconds overnight, Ahlin and his Norwegian co-driver Morten Erik Abrahamsen stretched their advantage over the opposition to 27.6 seconds across Sunday’s three stages.
There was typically changeable British weather during the event, altering the conditions found on each of the seven special stages, which were held on fast gravel tracks in the Kielder Forest. However, the drivers using Pirelli’s products could count on the versatility of the Scorpion range of gravel rally tyres.
Among the favourites for glory on the Pirelli Carlisle Rally after a promising start to the season, a confident Ahlin chose before the event to play his ‘joker’, which allows each BRC driver to double their points on one round of the series. That decision has paid off, with a maximum score of 50 points putting him into the championship lead.
“I’m very, very happy,” he said. “First of all, it’s very good for the championship, to be in the lead now thanks to the win. I’m really happy to win the Pirelli Carlisle Rally. The conditions have been quite different, we’ve had sections with good grip, dry, consistent and clean stages, and then all of a sudden it became very loose, wet, it’s been everything. It was really hard to find a good tyre choice that would suit all the different conditions, but I think we did a good job with that.”
As well as Ahlin’s overall victory, Pirelli could celebrate wins in the BRC3 class with Chris Wheeler in his Citroen DS3 R3T and in BRC1 with Ford Fiesta R1 driver Tom Williams. Seventeen-year-old Williams represents the Richard Burns Foundation set up following the death of his godfather Richard Burns, who was the 2001 World Rally Champion on Pirelli tyres.
