IOAN Lloyd and his co-driver Sion Williams will contest this weekend's Rali Ceredigion (September 4-7) in their bid to win the ERC4 class within the FIA European Rally Championship.

Lloyd, from Llandysul, and Williams, of Blaenau Ffestiniog, will tackle the Aberystwyth-based rally, which is the biggest rally of the UK season, as part of their programme in this year's European Rally Championship.

Although Ceredigion is not a round of the Junior ERC this year, they are very keen to show well on their home event and a strong result in Wales could help them challenge for the ERC4 title during the final round in Croatia in early October.

However, that is still a big task for Lloyd, 22-years old from Llandysul in West Wales, as newly-crowned JERC champion Calle Carlberg currently has a handy points advantage.

Rali Ceredigion is a huge event for UK and Welsh rallying and starts on Friday evening with an incredibly popular spectator stage around the streets and seafront of Aberystwyth.

Saturday, then takes in a full day of closed road special stages covering some of the most spectacular and scenic roads that mid-Wales has to offer.

The action starts with the Cwm Elan stage, which takes in part of the stunning Elan Valley region before moving to the daunting 22-mile Y Diafol stage, which includes the incredible Devil’s Staircase section of hairpins.

After the Mydroilyn stage near Lampeter the route is repeated following a service halt back in Aberystwyth.

On Sunday, two challenging stages in the Devil’s Bridge area will be run twice before the winners are celebrated back on the Aberystwyth front from 4pm on Sunday afternoon.

Lloyd said: “I'll be using my own Peugeot 208 Rally4 on this event and hoping that it will be a good test ahead of the important final round of the Junior ERC in Croatia in early October.

“We're obviously after ERC4 points, but the event is also a round the Stellantis UK Cup, so it will be nice to be part of that family again after we won the Cup last year.

“I'm looking forward to being out on a home event as it's always a special feeling and having an ERC rally based in Aberystwyth is so cool.

“It should be a great rally and obviously it is good for our local sponsors and supporters for us to be out competing on such a high profile event in Wales.

“I'd like to thank all of our supporters, including those who are based in the Aberystwyth area, for their on-going support.”

For Rali Ceredigion, Ioan will welcome event support from Sonny Vaughan Electrical, Brodyr Thomas Construction and Tipi Cymru.