{"id":5199,"date":"2026-04-14T14:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/?p=5199"},"modified":"2026-04-14T14:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T13:36:15","slug":"magnificent-castrol-mem-rally-team-1-2-finish-on-the-severn-valley-stages-as-osian-pryce-wins-on-his-toyota-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/2026\/04\/14\/magnificent-castrol-mem-rally-team-1-2-finish-on-the-severn-valley-stages-as-osian-pryce-wins-on-his-toyota-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnificent Castrol MEM Rally Team 1-2 finish on the Severn Valley Stages, as Osian Pryce wins on his Toyota debut"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Castrol MEM Rally Team scored a magnificent 1-2 finish \u2013 its first in the British Rally Championship \u2013 on the Severn Valley Stages (Saturday 11 April), with Osian Pryce\/James Morgan winning on their Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 debut and team-mates Meirion Evans\/Dale Furniss coming home a close second.
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It was also a near clean sweep of stage wins for the team (six out of seven fastest stage times), as the Castrol duo finished almost 50 seconds ahead of their nearest BRC rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The result gives Osian, the 2022 British Rally Champion, the lead in the BRC drivers\u2019 standings, while Castrol MEM Rally Team tops the teams\u2019 title race.
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Despite having never rallied a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 before, Osian set the fastest time on the opening stage and held a slender lead, just 3.4 seconds ahead of Meirion, at the midday service halt.
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The 33-year old Machynlleth-born driver extended his advantage in the afternoon and completed a faultless drive through the final 18.65-mile Myherin Main stage to win by 19 seconds.
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Fastest time on the first run through Myherin (SS3) moved Meirion up to second position, from where he challenged his Castrol Toyota team-mate for victory for the remainder of the event.
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Leaving midday service, Meirion sensed a potential first major gravel rally win was on the cards. But the weather deteriorated in the afternoon, and a change of tyre compound for what turned out to be a wet and slippery final three stages saw Meirion settle for second \u2013 which performance-wise was arguably the 30-year old Lampeter driver\u2019s most impressive run on a loose-surface event.
\u00a0Osian Pryce said: \u201cFor my first event in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, I\u2019m very happy with the performance and the result.
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\u201cWe started sensibly. Stage one wasn\u2019t perfect, but to win my first stage in the car was nice and we built on it from there really. The Toyota works slightly differently to everything else I\u2019ve driven, so it was just a case of getting myself dialled in and the more miles we did the better it felt.
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\u201cIt was nice to finish with that long stage, where you could really get stuck in and find a good rhythm. By then I was a lot more tuned into the car, and it meant that we left the event on a high.
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\u201cIt all went according to plan and we got that important win, which is the best way to start a championship. It\u2019s a good start and there\u2019s definitely more to come.\u201d
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Meirion Evans said: \u201cThis is a magnificent result for the Castrol MEM Rally Team, and our first one-two finish in the British Rally Championship.
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\u201cFor us, our performance was good \u2013 no mistakes, kept it clean, no punctures and everything worked like clockwork. Even though the stages are close to home, they\u2019re not ones I know very well, so it was especially nice to get a stage win in Myherin, which is one of the all-time classic Welsh gravel stages. I think that shows more than anything that we have the pace on gravel now.
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\u201cIt was close at midday and I thought we could go for the win. The weather was turning, so we went with a slightly different tyre strategy in the afternoon. It didn\u2019t hinder us too much, until right at the end of the long final stage. It was eighteen and a half miles, and the surface was polished and down to the bedrock in places compared to the morning, but in fairness I don\u2019t think it cost us enough to overturn the deficit at the end.
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\u201cI\u2019d have liked to have won, but if it isn\u2019t me on the top step then I obviously want the other Castrol Toyota to win \u2013 so many congratulations to Osian and James on winning the Severn Valley on their first event with the team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Castrol MEM Rally Team scored a magnificent 1-2 finish \u2013 its first in the British Rally Championship \u2013 on the Severn Valley Stages (Saturday 11 April), with Osian Pryce\/James Morgan winning on their Toyota […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5200,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,32,13],"tags":[150,108,129,28,106,151,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-5199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-castrol-mem-rally-team","8":"category-customer-updates","9":"category-rally-car-preparation","10":"tag-150","11":"tag-brc","12":"tag-castrol-mem-rally-team","13":"tag-meirion-evans","14":"tag-osian-pryce","15":"tag-severn-valley-stages","16":"tag-toyota-yaris-rally-2"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199","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=5199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5207,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5199\/revisions\/5207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/176.32.230.251\/melvynevansmotorsport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}