{"id":5096,"date":"2025-08-17T20:22:49","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/?p=5096"},"modified":"2025-08-17T20:22:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:22:52","slug":"victory-and-double-grampian-podium-for-castrol-mem-rally-team-as-william-creighton-takes-overall-british-rally-championship-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/2025\/08\/17\/victory-and-double-grampian-podium-for-castrol-mem-rally-team-as-william-creighton-takes-overall-british-rally-championship-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Victory and double Grampian podium for Castrol MEM Rally Team as William Creighton takes overall British Rally Championship lead"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Castrol MEM Rally Team scored a double podium result on the Voly Grampian Forest Rally (8\/9 August), with event winners William Creighton\/Liam Regan taking the overall lead of the Probite British Rally Championship and Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 team-mates Meirion Evans\/Dale Furniss remaining their nearest title rivals after finishing third.
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William set the fastest time on both of Friday\u2019s opening stages to go into the overnight halt with an impressive 16.3sec lead after just 10.8 miles of competition.
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Despite running first on a very loose, dry and fast Aberdeenshire gravel surface, another two early fastest times on Saturday increased the 26-year old Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy supported driver\u2019s lead to 26.5secs. From then on, William was able to manage his advantage and control his pace at the front to avoid punctures and problems \u2013 with another fastest time on the penultimate stage sealing the deal as he came home to win, 32.5secs ahead of his nearest rival.
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Running fourth on the road, Meirion was delayed in dust on SS1 and finished Friday\u2019s leg in second position. He held that place until a tricky spectator stage at BA Barn in Kintore, where he dropped to third, albeit by just 0.3secs.
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An overshoot on the first stage out of service (SS6) was to be the deciding factor, for despite a strong run to the finish \u2013 including second fastest time on SS7 \u2013 the 30-year old Welshman finished third, just 10.2secs behind the runner-up.
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Having been tied on points coming into the Grampian Rally, the result sees William take the overall lead at the top of the BRC drivers\u2019 table with 68 points, with Meirion second, 10 points behind, and both drivers yet to play their bonus points-scoring Joker.
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William Creighton said: \u201cIt feels amazing. We put a lot of preparation into this rally beforehand to enable us to get the most out of this weekend and to get the result, so it makes it all worthwhile. I\u2019m delighted.
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\u201cWe have worked so hard, it\u2019s fantastic to get good points for the championship, so I\u2019m super, super pleased! This year\u2019s Grampian Rally went a lot better than it did last year, so I guess we learned from last year and tried to right those wrongs. I think we\u2019ve done well, and it\u2019s great to achieve what we have.\u201d
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Meirion Evans said: \u201cI\u2019m quite pleased with the result, as I said before the Grampian Rally that I\u2019d be happy with a podium finish.
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\u201cWe were holding second, but I made a mistake on the sixth stage and overshot the first corner and had to reverse \u2013 but to be fair, Will [Creighton] was in a class of his own and a double podium finish was another fantastic result for the team.
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\u201cIt\u2019s a big event for us coming up next. Rali Ceredigion is our home asphalt round of the BRC, and we hope to get back to the pace that we were at earlier in the year on the Jim Clark and Donegal rallies. I\u2019m still in contention for the drivers\u2019 title, so it will be all-out to get a good result there.\u201d

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Castrol MEM Rally Team scored a double podium result on the Voly Grampian Forest Rally (8\/9 August), with event winners William Creighton\/Liam Regan taking the overall lead of the Probite British Rally Championship and Toyota […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[138,108,129,149,28,127,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-5096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-castrol-mem-rally-team","8":"tag-138","9":"tag-brc","10":"tag-castrol-mem-rally-team","11":"tag-grampian-rally","12":"tag-meirion-evans","13":"tag-toyota-yaris-rally-2","14":"tag-william-creighton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5101,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5096\/revisions\/5101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}