Meeke and O’Sullivan Dominate in Ceredigion
The 6th round of the FIA European Rally Championship took place in Ceredigion over the weekend of 4th-6th of September. With 37 competitors entered over the weekend, Kris Meeke and Noel O’Sullivan came out on top at the final hurdle…
The series continued after its 5th round in the Czech Republic back in August, where Březíc and Bělák recorded a home win. This is the third time that Ceredigion has made an appearance in the FIA European Rally Championship, with its first appearance being in 2024. With the weekend having a total of 16 stages, the drivers would race 196.58km throughout Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
During the Qualifying Stage held on 4th of September, Finish driver Teemu Suninen in the Fabia RS topped the timesheets with an overall time of 03:52.9 while Polish driver Miko Marczyk also in the Fabia RS came in second with a time of 03:54.4. During the Shakedown, also held on the 4th of September, Kris Meeke topped the timesheets with a time of 04:02.0 in his first run while Meirion Evans and Osian Pryce came second and third respectively in the Shakedown stage of their home race…
Over the course of the weekend, Meeke and O’Sullivan dominated all SS stages bar SS3 and SS4 on Friday 4th September, where Suninen and Haapala topped the timesheets with a time of 05:49.7 and 11:09.0 in their Fabia RS yet during the final, the difference between first and second place was 38.6 seconds.
28 competitors continued to the final and while Meeke and O’Sullivan triumphed, Junzhe Tang and Tsung Yu Hsieh recorded the slowest time with a total of 02::41:38.4, a difference of 01:11:53.1 between first and 28th. However, 3 competitors picked up penalties during the final stage with Sam Mason and James Seymor in the 208 Rally4 picking up a 2-minute stewards’ penalty and ultimately finishing in 26th.
In terms of the championship standings, Teemu Suninen has won the series with a total of 137 points, despite not entering in Sweden. Andrea Mabellini and Miko Marczyk are battling for second place with 98 and 92 points respectively, yet Mabellini also didn’t enter in Sweden. Towards the end of the 64 drivers, Patrik Hallberg, Jaspar Vaher, Tom Heindrichs and Lucas Zielinski are yet to score a point due to not entering any rally to date this year.
With the Fiesta Rally3 Trophy completed back in the Czech Republic, the final round for the Junior ERC and ERC 2026 will take place in Portugal, where drivers will compete in 6 cities around the North of the country. Round 7 will be held on the weekend of the 23rd to the 25th of October, where the event will make its first appearance in the FIA European Rally series…
Written by Ceri Norris
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