Osian Pryce put himself firmly in the pound seat in the race for the 2021 Motorsport UK British Rally Championship title after storming to a Visit Conwy Cambrian Rally victory on Saturday.

Machynlleth’s Pryce and co-driver Noel O’Sullivan took their Melvyn Evans Motorsport Volkswagen to their second BRC win of the season thanks to a faultless drive in the infamous north Wales stages.

Leading from the opening stage, the duo would never be knocked off top spot, taking their Michelin shod Polo GTi to back-to-back wins.

Seb Perez and Gary McElhinney upheld M-Sport honours by taking their maiden BRC podium in second place, driving their Pirelli rubbered Fiesta Rally2, whilst two-time event winner and BRC title rivals Matt Edwards and Darren Garrod endured another tough weekend to take third after a nail-biting final loop.

World-class stages, famous for hosting the World Rally Championship crews on Wales Rally GB were likely to test the BRC regulars to the limit thanks to the unforgiving and slippery nature of the north Wales forests.

Based at the seaside town of Llandudno, the event also offered a unique twist to the format thanks to a brand new closed-road asphalt stage to round out proceedings.

Four drivers would head into the weekend still in with a chance of the title but after 44 miles of blistering stage action, that would be down to just two.

Double British champion Edwards would start the event as arguably the pre-event favourite and the Conwy driver would sensibly elect to play his Joker card for the chance of bagging up to five additional points on his home round.

But Pryce stole the march with the fastest time over the opener and despite an initial fightback from teammate Edwards, Pryce had full command all rally long.

“Of course, it’s never nice to see your rival with issues [Edwards] but I’m delighted with the win today,” said Pryce.

“I think we did all we needed to do this morning really. We built up that buffer on the opening stage and that was really important seeing how the day panned out.

“We didn’t think it would be easy at all, but we have just done exactly what we have been doing all year and stayed out of trouble.”

“We knew we needed to win here and now it all goes down to the Ulster.”

The British Rally Championship now heads across to Northern Ireland as the final round of the 2021 season and race for the British and Junior titles will play out across the demanding Modern Tyres Ulster Rally closed roads around Newry in November.Motorsport UK British Rally Championship Points – Overall After Round 61. Osian Pryce, 106 (joker)2. Matt Edwards, 98 (joker)3. Matthew Wilson, 53 (joker)4. Rhys Yates, 53 (joker)5. Sam Moffett, 37