Stuart Maloney leads Sol Rally Barbados after a thrilling opening day battle between himself and fellow local driver Dane Skeete.
Returning to the motorsport calendar for the first time since 2020, and running in its traditional early June date for the first time since 2019, the first nine stages of the rally have been about two of the country’s finest drivers – despite the influx of international entries.
Maloney, driving a Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo, leads by just 3.5 seconds over 2019 winner Skeete in his Subaru Impreza S12B WRC, but it was Skeete who was quickest on the opening Pickering test to take an early lead.
However Maloney responded on Dark Hole – the stage all competitors had been talking about before the rally as it was 60% new – to assume the lead from Skeete.
A blistering time on SS3 Kendal put some distance between Maloney and the chasing pack but across the repeat pass Skeete had the edge, closing to just 0.9s adrift at the lunch halt.
“We’re less than a second behind at the moment,” Skeete told DirtFish.
“I made a bad tire choice. I had Michelins which were a little bit of a harder compound than I was expecting, cost me a lot of time. Once we switched back onto the Pirellis we just chopped time out on the stages.
“The gap’s down to 0.9s so we’ll look to bring that time down and go into tomorrow in the lead, hopefully.”
Skeete’s wishes didn’t pan out however as despite taking the lead of the rally on Pickering 3, Maloney was once again irresistable on Dark Hole and then edged Skeete on the final stage too to carry the lead into Sunday where the rally action will be concluded.
But his day wasn’t without problems either: “On two stages we had the pop-off valve fail, so going through the stage it was just popping, popping,” he told DirtFish.
“We changed it and it’s a lot better now, other than that the car’s all good.”
Number one seed Zane Maloney, nephew of overnight leader Stuart, has ensured it’s a Bajan 1-2-3 after a slow morning but impressive afternoon in his Fabia R5.
Stuart predicted at the lunch halt that once Zane “finds his comfort zone the tables may turn” and so it proved, as the Formula 3 racer zipped to three stage wins across the day to lie 10.7s down on his uncle overnight.
This year’s rally is looking like a three-horse race as fourth-placed Josh Read is over half a minute adrift in his Ford Fiesta R5. But on his first full-length rally in such machinery, this was a hugely impressive and accomplished day from Read.
“I’m happy,” he said. “I just want to stay consistent and try and be sensible.”
Kevin Procter is the top international driver after the first day, leading a line of fellow British pilots in his Ford Fiesta S2000T.
Procter had joked that “there may as well be nobody else in the rally” bar fellow Fiesta S2000T driver Andy Scott – the pair focusing purely on beating each other.
Currently it’s advantage Procter, but the two rivals have got three-time Rally Barbados runner-up Robert Swann sandwiched between them overnight in his Ford Fiesta Rally2. Swann was meant to compete in his Subaru Impreza S12B WRC but a terminal engine problem on last weekend’s King of the Hill necessitated a car change.
Frank Bird, son of two-time Barbados winner Paul Bird, had been the highest international driver, lying as high as second overall after the first pass of Dark Hole. But it would soon all unravel for the Fiesta Rally2 driver as he lost a driveshaft and incredibly managed to fix it on the road section.
“It made me spin and then we’ve had loads of problems since there,” Bird told DirtFish. “It’s alright now but we’ve got another problem, electrical.”
Bird did at least return to the leaders’ pace on the third loop, but his dramas leave him ninth overall and over a minute down.
Mark Thompson is ahead of him in eighth in his Mitsubishi, while Roger Hill completes the overnight top 10.
Five-time Barbados winner Jeffrey Panton was the day’s biggest casualty, as he retired his Fiesta Rally2 with severe front-right damage (pictured above) on the second stage.
Leading positions after SS9
1 Stuart Maloney/Kristian Yearwood (Škoda) 34m47.32s
2 Dane Skeete/Tyler Mayhew (Subaru) +3.51s
3 Zane Maloney/Kreigg Yearwood (Škoda) +14.21s
4 Josh Read/Barry Ward (M-Sport Ford) +45.38s
5 Kevin Procter/Patrick Walsh (M-Sport Ford) +57.84s
6 Rob Swann/Darren Garrod (Subaru) +1m01.96s
7 Andy Scott/Tom Woodburn (M-Sport Ford) +1m05.26s
8 Mark Thompson/Kurt Seabra (Mitsubishi) +1m14.49s
9 Frank Bird/Jack Morton (M-Sport Ford) +1m23.72s
10 Roger Hill/Graham Gittens (Škoda) +1m29.56s
