Osian rides the winning wave in Portugal
Osian Pryce scored a brilliant debut win in the World Rally Championship-based Drive DMACK Fiesta Trophy this afternoon — the Welshman finished Rally of Portugal with almost two minutes ahead of his nearest rival.
Just down the road from Rally of Portugal’s Porto base is the beach where the first ever 100-foot Atlantic surf was ridden a few years ago; that’s nothing compared with the wave Osian and co-driver Dale Furniss are riding tonight.
They are category winners in the FIA World Rally Championship for the first time.
And they’ll be back at work on the building site in Wales tomorrow (Monday).
Having run second for much of the three-day rally, 23-year-old Welshman Osian moved into the lead when his Portuguese rival Bernardo Sousa crashed on the 19th and final stage.
“I’m so happy,” said Pryce, “so, so happy! It’s incredible. And it’s not just for me, so many people have worked so hard to put me in the position to fight for this championship this year and to pay them back with a win first time out in the car is really special.”
Malcolm Wilson, two-time World Rally Championship-winning team principal and managing director of M-Sport — the firm which builds the Ford Fiesta R2Ts used in DDFT, was impressed with what he saw from Pryce.
“To do this on his debut in the Fiesta R2T is great,” said Wilson. “It would have been difficult for him to come here and compete in a car which he’s not so familiar with, but he’s been very sensible and very quick, setting some fastest times on his way to the win.
“I told all of the drivers before the start, the key here was to play themselves in, learn the car and don’t try to do too much too quickly. Osian and Dale have done that and come out as winners.”
Osian won the category by 1m45.1s from Max Vatanen, son of 1981 world champion Ari.
“Our morning had gone very well today,” Osian said, “we weren’t taking any risks. We had a good margin to Max and the aim was to maintain that and take points for second place and some bonus points for stage wins. When we saw Bernardo’s car on its side, I couldn’t really believe it.
“Straight away, Dale said: “Concentrate!” I must admit, for the next corner or couple of corners, I did have a quick think about things, but then I was back focused on bringing the car home for the win.
“We came close to winning the Junior WRC class on this rally last year and then in Poland as well, but both times we missed out. To finally do it, to finally win at this level makes up for all that disappointment. It’s an incredible feeling.”
Winner at world championship level or not, Osian will be back at work tomorrow (Monday) morning.
“We’re flying out of Portugal late tonight and then it’s back to it in the morning,” said Osian, who works as a builder. “I think we’ll have a bit of a celebration at the airport, but I’ll be in work at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. It’s going to be a bit surreal to be back on the site after doing what we were doing 24 hours earlier!”
Despite taking that first win, Osian’s eye is on the big prize on offer at next month’s Rally Poland (June 30-July3), DDFT round two.
A strong result in the Polish lake district will be enough for him to land two drives in an M-Sport Ford Fiesta R5 next season.
Osian explained: “The way the DDFT prize is structured, there are two drives on offer to the person with the most points from Portugal and Poland; Poland and Finland and finally Germany and Spain. We’ve got to be completely focused on scoring some big points in Poland — if we do that, I think that would be an even bigger celebration!
“I must admit I’ve absolutely loved this event. Making the switch from Junior WRC to DDFT was absolutely the right move for me this season; the car has been faultless on what’s been a pretty tough rally and the tyres have performed perfectly on some of the rockiest roads I’ve seen. I’ve got to thank everybody at DMACK and M-Sport for a great weekend and a brilliant week!”
