Breen clamins maiden SWRC Victory

World Rally Academy Champions Craig Breen and Gareth Roberts have secured their maiden SWRC win after a mature performance at this week's Rallye Monte-Carlo. The Irish/Welsh partnership taking on the iconic event for the first time showed maturity by driving a controlled event in their Ford Fiesta S2000 and took over the lead when category leader P-G Andersson (SWE, Proton Satria Neo S2000) retired on stage sixteen.

Moving up to the Super 2000, World Rally Championship for the 2012 season, Breen had to contend with varying weather conditions, as the famous Cote D'Azur event through its usual mix of wet and dry roads compounded by snow, fog and black ice. Tyre choice played a major factor but the Kel-Tech Engineering backed Fiesta had to endure multiple punctures over the opening three days as the rally rotated around its remote base in Valence at the foot of the French Alps.

The SWRC battle turned on its head on the rerun of stage sixteen, Moulinet La Bollène Vésubie 2, when Proton driver P-G Andersson retired with a incar fire as a result of a fuel leak. Andersson's, Proton team mate Giandomenico Basso, had previously retired on day-one after an accident. With only three drivers registered for the Super 2000 World Championship taking part on the event Breen was left to pick up the pieces and continued his strategy of driving at a controlled pace and duly delivered his first victory in the SWRC.

"This is unbelievable, I'm just delighted and so happy with this victory. We came here with a plan and it's worked perfectly."

"Our task was made easier last night on stage 16 when P-G (Andersson, SWE) retired," Continued Breen, "It handing us the lead but this has been the toughest event of my career. We've had to contend with every type of weather imaginable, tyre choice has been a lottery throughout the five days, we were always making a compromise for the varying road surface on each loop of stages. I lost a lot of time over the first three days with punctures but in the end our strategy to drive a controlled event has paid off. The 'Monte' is just so technical, this is my first time to compete here, it's been repeated so many times that a driver needs to gain experience on this event, building a good set of 'notes' (pacenotes), building on what they learn from tackling the stages and I've learned so much over the last week. This is a great start to the season, we have 25 championship points heading to Sweden in February and having already done the event in a S2000 last year, hopefully there we'll be able to push from the start."

An essential element inside the car, 'Welsh Wizard' Roberts was relieved to see a successful finish and claim their first win of the year: "It's been a very long and gruelling event, including testing, recce and the five day rally you need to be fully focused. I did this event last year with a different driver, but Craig and I have forged a great partnership over the last three years, this collaboration culminated with the WRC Academy crown last year and now we've moved up the SWRC and this is a perfect start to the season."

On Saturday night Craig had a brief interlude from his Monte foray as he linked through the internet to the Park Hotel Sports Star gala function in Dungarvan. Craig was in contention for the supreme award after been chosen for both the 2011 August monthly award (WRC Academy win in Germany) and the November monthly award for clinching the WRC Academy title on Rally GB. On the night the supreme award went to a deserved Kate Veale. Kate's highlight in 2011 was winning gold in the 5,000 meters walk at the World Youths championships in Lille last July. Craig said on hearing the news, "I would like to offer my congratulations to Kate, she like myself had a fantastic year in 2011. I want to congratulate all the monthly winners during 2011, after reading there was a total of seven different sports represented, it shows the amount of sports talent we have in Waterford. I would also like to thank everyone connected with the awards. Been recognized for my achievements during last season was an honor, it shows that Motorsport is getting the recognition by the media and I hope this will continue in the future."