Niall McShea and Marshall Clarke took their first outright victory of the season when they won the latest round of the Chinese Rally Championship. The pair have been close to victory in Asia several times this season until their luck deserted them, but on last weekend’s Longyou Rally they had luck on their side as they grabbed an unlikely victory in their Skoda.

“It was an unforeseen win to be honest,” said co-driver Marshall Clarke. “We were using a development car for next year and it was nowhere near sorted so we weren’t expecting any great result. The car virtually ran faultlessly though, although it is not fully sorted to be totally on the pace yet.” The pair settled into third place behind the Volkswagen of Jari Ketomaa and former British Champion Mark Higgins but the results were turned on their head in a dramatic finale. “We were content in third and that was a perfectly good placing for the car but Ketomaa broke his sump and then right at the finish Mark Higgins was excluded on a technicality,” explained Marshall. The win is a big boost for the pair, with one round of the series remaining. Although foreign drivers cannot score individual points in the Chinese Championship, the duo will be back in China later this month in a bid to score more points for the team on the final round the series.