OSIAN Pryce showed real class as he dominated the opening round of the National Rally Cup by winning by more than eight minutes on the Newtown-based Mid Wales Stages.

Driving a Mitsubishi Mirage R5, Pryce, of Aberangell, and co-driver Dale Furniss turned in a perfect performance, winning every stage by a huge margin - to build an eight-minute win over just six stages.

The 23 year-old was understandably delighted with such a commanding performance in the Spencer Sport-run car.

“I’m so pleased with the way things have gone for us on this rally,” said Pryce.

“In my mind I wanted to go out and try to dominate this event, and that’s just what we did – but to do it with a victory margin of more than eight minutes is pretty special and more than even I imagined.

“I have to give credit to Spencer Sport, the whole team has done a really good job on this rally. The car has run well and we’ve shown the potential of what the Mirage can do. I think there’s more to come from the car, but this is a very good start.

“Personally, I’m delighted to be back out competing and winning. This definitely wasn’t an easy event, there was a lot of snow in the lead up, and then overnight as well. I have to say, this was probably one of the trickiest rallies I’ve ever done.”

The event started from Newtown on the Saturday evening, and finished back there six stages later on the Sunday afternoon.

As well as qualifying for the National Rally Cup, the Mid Wales Stages was the opening round of the revived British Rally Championship, and Pryce held his own.

Despite running without a pre-event recce - a chance to drive the stages before the event and make vital pacenotes, which the NRC crews are not allowed to do - Pryce would have been classified fifth in the BRC, having even spent the first half of the rally running on the podium.

Pryce added: “The performance against the BRC guys is something I’m especially pleased with. We know where our car is compared with the cars competing at the front of the BRC, and we know we’ve got work to do to get a bit closer to them, so to be placed third for a long time was great.

“We only just missed out on a fastest time in the BRC. First thing on Sunday we went off the road in fifth gear on a really icy patch at the top of the Myherin stage.

“We shot through the ditch and back onto the roa. I was gutted when we got to the finish and saw we’d missed the fastest BRC time by six tenths of a second.”