SS14/15: Scotland win for Mikkelsen

Andreas Mikkelsen has won RACMSA Rally of Scotland to set up a thrilling six-way fight for the Intercontinental Rally Challenge title on the final round in Cyprus next month.

The ŠKODA UK Motorsport pilot, who becomes the youngest IRC winner and the sixth different driver to triumph in 2011, led from Saturday’s second stage. Apart from a couple of punctures, little troubled the 22-year-old who took a dominant victory from factory ŠKODA driver Juho Hänninen.

“What a fantastic weekend,” said Mikkelsen. “We were so close to winning in Hungary and even closer in Sanremo, but we could not have found a better place to score our first IRC win on ŠKODA UK’s home event. The feeling is just amazing and this result gives us something to really build on for our next rally in Cyprus.”

Bryan Bouffier maintained his title push in third for Peugeot France after overcoming brake problems this morning. Craig Breen nursed a cracked exhaust manifold on his M-Sport Ford Fiesta S2000 to claim a hugely impressive fourth.

IRC title leader Jan Kopecký finished fifth with Thierry Neuville battling ahead of Toni Gardemeister to snatch sixth position for Team Peugeot Belgium-Luxembourg by winning the penultimate run through the 2.84-kilometre Scone Palace test. The Belgian repeated the feat with the fastest time through the final Scone run.

Peugeot UK’s Guy Wilks was leading after three stages but dropped out of contention when he spun into a ditch on stage five and got stuck for more than five minutes. The incident was captured live on Eurosport. Wilks was heading to ninth but stopped on the very last stage with a suspected mechanical fault. Alastair Fisher was the top Briton in eighth.

Toshi Arai won the IRC Production Cup for Subaru in 10th overall with Martin Kangur topping the IRC 2WD Cup classification in his Honda Civic Type R.