Vatanen in top shape for Trophy face-off
Finn bids to reel in leader Aasen in Finland
Cave victory opens Trophy title race
Tom Cave blew the Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy title race wide open with victory at Neste Oil Rally Finland on Sunday.
Cave, runner-up in last year’s series, topped the podium at the third round after a thrilling see-saw battle with Marius Aasen. The 23-year-old Briton won nine stages to win by 50.6sec and move into second in the standings, eight points behind Aasen.
Max Vatanen, who won the opening round in Portugal, was just 2.3sec further back in third and is just a point behind Cave.
“What a fantastic feeling it is to win in Finland, it’s only just starting to sink in that we’ve done it,” said Cave.
“I was happy with the pace we showed all weekend and we didn’t really have a problem. To achieve such a positive result and strengthen our championship position was the main goal and it feels great to have achieved that.”
Ghislain de Mevius clinched his first stage victory en route to fourth, with Kevin Van Deijne and Mats van den Brand completing the top six, the latter recovering from broken steering in Thursday night’s opening stage and a crash on Saturday.
Gus Greensmith and Will Hudson both rolled out, Nioclas Amiouni retired with brake problems and Edoardo Bresolin damaged his steering in an accident, but rejoined to finish seventh. All drivers were in identical Ford Fiesta R2 cars.
