IRC 2WD Cup glory for young gun Hunt

Harry Hunt has won the IRC 2WD Cup by securing his second victory of the season on the FxPro Cyprus Rally.

The 22-year-old British driver, who was navigated by fellow Briton Sebastian Marshall, started the mixed-surface Intercontinental Rally Challenge finale needing a solitary point to move ahead of Kevin Abbring and Rafael Tulio, who were not competing in Cyprus.

Prior to the event, the trio were all tied on 20 points.

“I was pretty nervous over those last few stages but it’s brilliant to have won,” said Hunt, who only began competing in 2009.

Driving an M-Sport Fiesta R2 for the Welsh I Cars Motorsport operation, Hunt survived a trip into a ditch on Friday, a puncture on the penultimate stage and a spin on the last test to finish ahead of the Honda Civic driver Laszlo Vizin.

“Today was probably the hottest I’ve been in a rally car because we couldn’t open the roof vents for fear of letting in the dust,” said Hunt, who claimed his first win in the class on Rally d’Italia-Sardegna in early June.