Breen: Title dream alive despite exit

Craig Breen has said he won’t give up on winning the inaugural WRC Academy Cup despite missing out on a gilt-edged opportunity to close the gap to title leader Egon Kaur on Rallye de France Alsace.

With Kaur retiring on Friday morning, Irishman Breen was well placed to cut his Estonian rival’s advantage only to crash out one kilometre from the end of this morning’s second stage in his Ford Fiesta R2.

“It’s going to be a tall order [to win the title] now but there are 18 stages on [Wales] Rally GB and 18 points up for grabs [in addition to the 25 we could get for winning] so we’ll be giving it a try,” Breen told WRC.com. “It’s disappointing that we’re out but, not wishing to sound cocky, I’ve proved I’m the fastest driver here and I hope to get the recognition for that.”

Breen, who is part of the Pirelli Star Driver programme, explained his off was the result of a pace note error: “I’ve made a hell of a lot of mistakes in my career but this time Gareth [Roberts] was a wee bit late with the note for a slow left corner. We went into a bank and broke the driveshaft. That’s why we couldn’t carry on.”

Breen’s exit has promoted Yeray Lemes into the lead of the young driver-training category after 11 stages. Alastair Fisher is second with Jose Suarez third.