Carlberg started JDS Machinery Rali Ceredigion needing victory in the Hankook-supplied category to keep his title hopes alive. And by going 9.3sec faster than his fellow Opel Corsa Rally4-driving Swede through Saturday morning’s first stage, Carlberg built a 12.8sec margin over Johansson, who dropped time running through a ditch.
With stage four cancelled for the Junior ERC drivers after James Williams crashed and blocked the road, the battle resumed on SS5 where Johansson began to eat into Carlberg’s advantage with the stage win.
Johansson was fastest again on SS6 to slash Carlberg’s lead to 0.2sec. And when Carlberg stopped to change a damaged front-left tyre on SS7, the lead went to Johansson with Max McRae moving into second as Carlberg slipped to sixth.
“The main goal was just to be ahead of Calle and we have a quite big advantage now,” said Johansson, who starts leg two leading McRae by a slender 3.3sec. “For the moment we are in the lead but I don’t think we’re going to keep it for tomorrow. We just want to get the car to the finish and we’re happy. I gave away too much time this morning on the first stage so I needed to take back that 10 seconds and that’s what we did.”
Carlberg said: “We just drove and I felt the car turning less and less and every kilometre it got worse,” Carlberg said. “I tried to continue but I realised the tyre is off the rim and we would have to stop with 10ks left and it’s all over. We’ve done what we can but it’s difficult.”
Timo Schulz, the leader after SS2, is third despite completing SS10 with a broken front-right driveshaft on his Corsa.
Davide Pesavento produce his best drive of the season so far in fourth and is followed by Daniel Polášek in fifth, Carlberg and Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy pair Aoife Raftery and Jack Brennan.
In the FIA ERC4 category, Welsh wildcard Ioan Lloyd is a strong fourth behind Johansson, McRae and Schulz with Kyle McBride overcoming brake issues and a damaged front-left tyre on SS6 to complete leg one in eighth place.
The 10.74km DC Autos Bethania test kicks off Sunday’s deciding leg of JDS Machinery Rali Ceredigion from 08:33 local time with the Spencer Quantum Hafod Power Stage due to get underway at 14:05.
Monaco
Spain
Turkey