It's great to see young British drivers doing well on the international scene, and regular visitors to Overdrive will know about Jason Pritchard. Jason has left the British Rally Championship to focus on his international career and entered the WRC in Germany recently. Here's how he got on...
Jason Pritchard made his overseas World Rally Championship debut this weekend and made his mark during the ADAC Rallye Deutschland. Pritchard finished an impressive 28th overall and 3rd in his class and was “absolutely delighted” with the end result. The rally, based in the historic town of Trier, saw Pritchard tackle 359km, of competitive rallying over the three day event.
Pritchard, who was joined in his North Road Garage backed Subaru Impreza by co-driver Dale Furniss, made the long journey out to Germany the Sunday before the event but the trip was well worth it for the 23-year-old Welshman: “I’m absolutely delighted with the end result” said Pritchard, “we came out
to Germany after a run of a bad luck in our last few events, it’s great to finish and even better to make the podium in our Group N class, especially finishing behind two local drivers. It was a real team effort out here and I can’t thank the team enough for their support this weekend, it’s been superb from the word go.”
Pritchard gained invaluable experience from the event and is extremely proud with finishing 28th in such a prestigious field.
Sebastien Ogier was the number one driver over the weekend, finishing in front of fellow Citreon driver Sebastien Loeb. Rallye Deutschland has the honour of being the first world championship event of the 2011 season to take place on asphalt, although it’s an asphalt rally like no other, offering a real test for drivers and their teams with all three days of the event held on different types of sealed surfaces.
Experiencing a number of testing conditions along the way, including temperatures in the high 30s most days, Pritchard encountered problems on the Saturday with a number of punctures during the second day and he also had to drive with a broken gear lever for sections of the race. Even so, he overcame the trouble to finish strongly on the Sunday: “You couldn’t allow your concentration to drop at any point over the three days; I had a tough day on the Saturday and experienced two punctures, the second one resulting in me changing the tyre whilst still on stage as I had 12km to go until I finished. “If we hadn’t had problems on the Saturday we could have had a good chance of finishing higher on the podium but that’s rallying, we finished on a real high and I can’t wait to compete at this level again, the whole team excelled this weekend and the only way is up.”
Pritchard displayed grit and determination over the three day event and really demonstrated his potential and ability to compete at the very highest level in the world of rallying.
Look out for a special feature about Jason Pritchard's adventures in Germany on Overdrive!
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