Llewellin - best of breed.
The rosette summed it up neatly: Best of Breed. David Llewellin can look back on the season past with some satisfaction, unbeaten on gravel and producing enough performance on tarmac in the latter part of the series to clinch his first British Open title.
“It hasn't really sunk in yet, but it feels good, very good! What a year; the championship and the Welsh Rally win. The Welsh result possibly means more than the title itself, but there are so many things to remember.
“I can t take the credit away from the lads either, they've put an awful lot of hours into that car to make it work. Everybody in the team has put in 100%. The car looked right on paper, but it just needed time before it would be right. Its record rather suggested it might not win the series this year, but should be good enough for 1990. But the testing has gone well and the result is well deserved.
“The Cartel result came as a great boost - we were all a bit shaky going into that event! - even though some people
thought we were lucky. We had problems with the clutch on the Circuit of Ireland, but more testing, the win in Donegal and then the performance on the Isle of Man showed that it is getting better on tarmac surfaces.
“We didn't have the opposition in Donegal where we went for some extra testing - there was no Jimmy or Mark and they can motor a bit, can't they? But the Isle of Man showed we weren't that far off the pace.
“Russell put up a real fight today. We were scratching our heads this morning when we saw the times he was putting up. The conditions were against him and he was driving out of his skin. He even had the other Ford drivers worried.
“We never did get to the bottom of the temperature problems we had - it might even be something as simple as a faulty gauge - but it gave me some worries at the start.
“I know it's not nice to say it, but learning that Russell had gone off brought a little smile to my face. There wouldn't be too many Welshmen offering to push him back on! But it gave me the chance to back off a bit. When I say 'back off I mean that I would brake a bit more for corners where, if I was having a fight, I would take a chance. We were still setting a reasonable pace, but Timo started taking time off us at the end.
“I had been through the park stages lots of times, I drove the course car on this event a couple of years ago, so I knew it better than Timo. I decided to have a go and see how we got on in front of the spectators. In the forests, it was so slippery it wasn't worth thinking about. It would have been so easy to stick it in the ditch, roll a tyre off the rim or something and get stuck. We had a bit of a do in Dyfnant this afternoon, and Timo took time off us, his lines showed he was having more of a go than us.”
The championship is over, but there is still the Lombard RAC Rally. “This has put me in the right frame of mind. There's no real pressure, so we'd better have a bit of ado, hadn't we?”
Notes on the cars
Toyota
Team Toyota GB entered two Celica GT-Fours for this event, the first for David Llewellin and the second Group A car, Llewellin's old one, was for Graham Middleton whose Group N car was wrecked during the Autoglass Tour. Llewellin's car was in the same trim as seen in Scotland, albeit with a shade extra boost that has come from the development programme, rather than for the sprint format of the event.
A recent test at Pembrey produced improved power throttles but otherwise the car was deliberately kept in very familiar specification for such an important outing.
Since the Manx failure, however, filters have been fitted to the gearbox to prevent any broken gears getting into the rest of the transmission.
Mazda
Mazda Rally Team Europe sent Timo Salonen with the team’s test car (used by Hannu Mikkola on Monte Carlo) for some pre-RAC Rally testing. The team was trying many different items for the event, primarily a new limited slip diff set-up - the centre with a viscous coupling - larger diameter tyres from Michelin and altered suspension settings. As a data recorder was on board, there had been no engine changes to worry about.
Peugeot
In a bid to assist Hakan Eriksson take the class award, Peugeot sent Eriksson's usual 309GTI but backed it with two 1900cc 205s for Chris Birkbeck and Simon Davison. The cars were used as test beds for a variety of specifications and engines, but all were set up as the Peugeots were for Scotland. Only the 309 had a change, a shorter final drive ratio had been fitted.
Vauxhall
With Malcolm Wilson back in the squad after his Australian adventure, the two Astras were returned to their usual owners. Wilson had the 228bhp version, fitted with the same - Australian specification - gearbox, while Louise Aitiken-Walker had her 220bhp version. The Nova for Dave Metcalfe had revised suspension with the 'clubman' wish bone and radius arm set-up. At the front, Bilstein shock absorbers were fitted as usual, but the team was also using Spax adjustable versions at the rear.
Ford
Neither R-E-D nor Mike Little had much to report from the Ford camps, both McRaes, Russell Brookes and Mark Lovell all in their usual cars and returned to 'Scottish Rally' specification.
Mitsubishi
Pentti Airikkala's Mitsubishi Galant VR -4 has hardly altered all season, with the exception of suspension adjustments for forest or tarmac. At the weekend, the Safety Devices team chose not to change that policy.
