Breen confident
of car fix

Breen heads Yazeed Al-Rajhi in the SWRC by 1m08.2s at the midday halt in Cardiff where he revealed a gearbox fault is the likely cause of the leak.

“We’re 95 per cent sure it’s the gearbox,” said Breen. “We can’t see where the crack is, if there is one because it’s in the back of the ‘box. The guys have one ready to go in and fingers crossed they can get it done in time. I have every faith they will get it done so we just need to see what happens.”

Breen confirmed it usually takes 25 minutes to change a gearbox on a Fiesta and with 30 minutes available in service, the Irishman is confident of avoiding any time penalties by leaving service late.

“I can afford probably a minute because I know I can open gap up the gap again but I don’t want to do that,” said Breen, who confirmed he and co-driver Paul Nagle had stopped three times on the liaison section heading to Cardiff to top up the oil supply. “I was missing my number one mechanic, Gareth [Roberts] was always the mechanically minded one and it was a bit traumatic trying to figure out what to do but we made it back.”