Nine testing special stages in the north of the island on Sunday will settle the Barbados Motoring Federation’s (BMF) 2025 Rally2 Championship in what is expected to be an exciting double-header final with just 17 points separating the top three positions and 46 points on offer.
Jamaicans Jeff Panton and Kyle Gregg along with Britain’s Rob Swann lead a healthy multi-national entry list of ten cars as they fight for the title.
The Barbados Rally Club (BRC) Winter Rally hosts rounds six and seven of the BMF’s first national motor sport competition following the cancellation of last month’s Motoring Club Barbados Inc (MCBI) Rally of the Sun & Stars, the scheduled penultimate round.
Panton, who won the title in 2023, leads the standings for the first time this year in his Ford Fiesta Rally2 with long-term co-driver Mike Fennell Jnr.
Panton won the Martinique Rallye Tour (July 24-27), a new date on the calendar for 2025 and his first Rally2 win since the 2023 Rally of the Sun & Stars.
Also in a Fiesta, Gregg, who missed the Martinique stage, has been a model of consistency, placing second in the first four rounds.
Swann, a regular figure in island rallying for more than 15 years, stands his best chance yet in the Rally2 Championship. After placing sixth in 2022 and 2023 in his former Fabia R5, he finished fourth last year when he bought his current Fabia Rally2 evo.
This year, he is third in the standings, nine points behind Gregg and 17 adrift of Panton once dropped scores are taken into account.
Josh Read, who finished third in the Rally2 Championship’s first season – his first in 4wd – before bouncing back to take the title last year with co-driver Mark Jordan, still has a mathematical chance of claiming the title after missing this year’s opening round while upgrading to the Fiesta Rally2.
Based on the results of the recent MCBI Run to Winter double-header held on October 12, these four will also need to watch for Adam Mallalieu, who joined fellow ‘next generation’ rising star Zane Maloney.
While Maloney will be out of the island preparing for his second season in the FIA Formula E World Championship, Mallalieu will be aiming to continue his stellar form from the MCBI event, where he finished third in the first run and fourth in the reverse in his Fiesta R5, and ahead of Read in both directions.
Both Mallalieu and Roger Hill, currently eighth and ninth, look set to climb up the standings at the season finale, as seventh-placed Suleman Esuf will not be competing in the class.
After finishing an impressive fifth in BCIC RB25, Esuf sold his Fabia Rally2 evo to Hill to replace the Fabia R5 in which he and co-driver Graham Gittens had contested more than 50 island events since 2020.
The entry is set to be completed by the Citroen C3 Rally2 of Paul Horton of the Turks & Caicos Rally Team, currently sixth in the standings, Bajan David Husbands (Volkswagen Polo GTI R5), Jamaica’s Tarik Minott and America’s George Sherman (Fabia Rally2 evo).
Round six of the Rally2 Championship will comprise three runs from French Village to The Rock (2.7kms), the first starting at 10:35 a.m., alternating with two from Pickering to Luke Hill (4.0kms).
Two reverse runs through each stage are scheduled to start with Luke Hill to Pickering at 2:40 p.m. for round seven.
(PR)
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