By Paul Evans
Having been away from the British Rally Championship for over two and a half years, Osian Pryce says that finishing second to reigning British champion Matt Edwards on his home round of the series, the Llandudno-based Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally, was “as good as a win”.
While Edwards has enjoyed two successful seasons in the BRC, winning the title in 2018 and ’19 in a Ford Fiesta R5 (and winning the Cambrian Rally last year), Pryce hasn’t been seen in Britain’s premier rally series since August 2017.
Despite being one of the most talented drivers in Britain, Pryce – the 2016 DriveDMACK Fiesta Trophy champion – has struggled to find sufficient funding to get him back into the BRC, let alone the World Championship, where he undoubtedly belongs.
Yet when opportunities do come his way, the 26-year old Machynlleth-born driver never fails to deliver.
For example, on his first rally in Africa he won his class on the East African Classic Safari driving a Ford Escort Mk1. Last year he also won Wales’ first closed public road stage rally outright, taking a hired Hyundai i20 R5 to victory on the Rali Bae Ceredigion. In 2018 he gave the VR4K Oreca FIA R4-spec car its world debut – nobody really knew how competitive the car would be, but Pryce drove an Etios R4 to first in class and second overall on the Rallye Ciudad de Granada (a round of the Spanish Gravel Championship); a result that even surprised the Barcelona-based ASM Motorsport team who’d built it! And he usually wins when he appears in an Escort Mk2 as well, with victory on the Red Kite Rally 2WD and Escort Rally Special Historic in Belgium in 2018 just two of several wonderful performances.
So it was no surprise for Pryce to put a last minute low-budget deal together to appear on Saturday’s Cambrian Rally. On his first gravel event in a Hyundai i20 R5, and partnered by a new co-driver, Pryce could not risk a big repair bill and therefore drove at no more than 85%.
What followed was quite extraordinary. Pryce set equal second fastest time on the opening stage through Crafnant. A quick spin at a hairpin on the next stage, Gwydir, cost him a few seconds, but he was back up to second place after setting another second quickest time through Penmachno forest – a position he held entering midday service after a high-speed blast around the Great Orme.
Three stages ran in the afternoon – a repeat of Crafnant and Gwydir and a run through Elsi – where Pryce maintained a controlled pace in the Melvyn Evans Motorsport-run car to secure the runners-up spot. With very little experience in the car, he finished 38.4 seconds behind Edwards and 31.6 seconds ahead of third-placed Rhys Yates, who is a works-supported M-Sport Ford WRC 2 driver.
“Finishing second to Matt Edwards on his local Cambrian Rally is as good as a win for me,” said Pryce. “I haven’t driven at more than eighty-five per cent all rally, as this was the first time that I’d driven the Hyundai i20 R5 on gravel, so there is a lot more to come from both me and the car. The stages were quite rough in places, and with no time to fine tune the set up of the car to my liking, I wasn’t prepared to give any more as I’m sure it wouldn’t have ended well! We set out to do our own rally and not worry too much about where we were on the leaderboard – that’s exactly what we did all the way to the finish, and it was undoubtedly the best approach to take.
“My first rally with Noel [O’Sullivan, co-driver] was great. Having never even sat in a car together before our short pre-event test, I’d say everything went very well.
“A big thanks to those who made this happen, especially Omologato Watches, Ryan Motorsport Insurance, Pirelli, Hockly Motorsport and G&M Pryce Ltd, and to the Melvyn Evans Motorsport team for proving a faultless car.
“There are plenty of places where we can improve, but it’s been a good day and it was great to be back competing in the British Rally Championship. We’re working hard to try and make it to the next round of the series in West Cork now.”