THE new season dawned bright for 20 year-old Meirion Evans as he used the Cambrian Rally to debut his brand new Ford Fiesta R2T - and the Lampeter driver took front wheel drive honours in a near perfect opening to his 2016 campaign.

Despite just a four month turn around following the previous Cambrian Rally in October, the event opened the 2016 national rallying season with eight stages and 40 miles of competition above Betws-y-Coed, taking in the renowned Penmachno and Clocaenog forests, before a final blast around the infamous Great Orme - a stage infamous for catching out even the world’s best drivers.

The Llandudno based event saw Meirion, and long-time co-driver Jonathan Jackson, set out to learn their new car in the heat of competition. Quickly settling in to the Fiesta, which is eligible for international competition across the globe, the pair began to set top 2WD times, culminating in taking fastest front wheel drive times on five out of the eight stages.

Using the DMACK tyres, permitted within the MSA British Junior Championship, which will now form Evans’ sole focus for the remainder of the season, the Cambrian allowed Evans, Jackson and the Melvyn Evans Motorsport team to collect invaluable data ahead of the opening round of the BRC, the Mid Wales Stages, being held in little over a fortnight’s time.

With the Fiesta R2T being run by Lampeter based Melvyn Evans Motorsport, the motorsport preparation company run by Meirion’s father Melvyn, the former Junior 1000 event winner emerged from the North Wales event well satisfied.

“This weekend really has gone completely to plan,” Evans said at the finish.

“We’ve been trying new things since our first test a few weeks ago and today proved that they’ve all paid off - we ticked all the boxes we wanted to achieve this weekend and we can move on to preparing for the Mid Wales Stages full of confidence that we’re in a very good place.”

The Mid Wales Stages, round one of the re-launched MSA British Rally Championship, will see Evans and Jackson join 15 other Junior competitors as they fight for the biggest prize in UK Rallying - £60,000 towards a Drive Dmack Fiesta campaign in the World Championship in 2017.