Two in a row for David Higgins

David and his co-driver Ieuan Thomas have now won both of the opening two rounds of this year's Chinese Rally Championship. Although David cannot score overall points towards the driver's title, he has put they WY team firmly at the top of the team points table.

"We were fastest on every stage except two," said David. "Our Mitsubishi Lancer Evo9 was faultless throughout the weekend. We were leading by 30 seconds after the first leg but I knew Jarko Miettinen was going to push us hard to get past on day two and the first stage would be the one he had beaten us on on leg one.

"We pushed hard but made sure we kept the Hankook tyres in good condition for the twisty stages. Then we found out that Jarko had had a big crash. We were 30 seconds faster than the next car so we just took an easy run to the end. We were still fastest on the stages though and won by two minutes and ten seconds."

David would like to thank TQ Education and Training, Tein Suspension and Hankook Tyres.

5000 miles later

TQ driver David Higgins and his co-driver Ieuan Thomas are about to make the 5000 mile trip back to China for the second round of the Chinese Rally Championship, the Huairou Rally near Beijing on 16th/17th June.

David won the opening round of the championship, the Shanghai Rally in March. Since then he has been driving the TQ RED Toyota S2000R on the British Rally Championship, but he is sure switching back to the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo9 he uses in China will not cause a problem.

"It will be a lot quieter in the Group N car, and different to drive, but I always watch a lot of in-car between rallies so it won't be a problem," said David. "It's not the same as driving, but watching the in-car keeps you sharp and gets you looking at where you change gear and things like that in the Group N car."

"This will be the first ever full asphalt rally in China. It's based in Beijing but I've only ever done a gravel rally there before so it will all be new to us. We will get to do a two pass recce, but some drivers seem to do more than that because the rules are quite vague in China. I don't think there's any point in doing that though because you only kid yourself that you're doing a good thing. On other championships you only get to do two passes, so it's good practice to keep doing that."

David and Ieuan will arrive in China on Monday and hope to fit in a day's testing back behind the wheel of the Evo9 ahead of the recce.

Because David is British he cannot score drivers points in the championship, but can take points for the WY Rally Team in their battle for the teams title.