Marshall Clarke lies third in the WRC2 Championship after co-driving Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari to fifth overall on Rally Portugal.

Marshall Clarke lies third in the WRC2 Championship after co-driving Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari to fifth overall on Rally Portugal.

The pair survived a fire and a puncture in their Ford Fiesta to take a further ten championship points and remain in contention for the overall title after the first European round of the series.

A fourth place finish in Mexico and victory in Rally Argentina gave the pair a great start to the campaign, but it looked as though their Rally Portugal adventure would come to an end almost before it started as they suffered a fire after the short opening spectator stage.

“We had our problems,” admitted Marshall. “A fuel temperature sensor came loose and it sprayed the fuel out over the exhaust. It wasn’t a small leak! When we slowed down it burst into flames on the stop line. The marshals at the control put it out and then I got it fixed. We limped back to service but there were alarms going off left, right and centre on the dashboard. It was a fairly intense fire. It melted the headlights, the scuttle panel under the wipers, and the wiper blades. It was a proper fire! It was straight into parc ferme so the following morning we just had to pray it started. We got it to service and the boys replaced everything electrical under the bonnet as well as scraping the melted plastic off everything.” Having survived the drama with no loss of time they were running just ahead of former Junior World Rally Champion St�phane Lefebvre when they hit further problems. “On Friday afternoon we had a puncture and that dropped us from fifth to ninth,” said Marshall. “That left us in no man’s land. There was nobody close behind us and we were too far away from eighth, so we had to really drive the rally knowing we were going to have to rely on something happening to others to gain any places. We ended up fifth by the time all was said and done.” Despite the frustration of the time consuming puncture, Marshall admits competing in front of the fanatical Portuguese fans was a great experience. “The crowds were unbelievable,” he said. “When you can hear them cheering from inside the car you know there is a lot of people there. The rally was well organised and the stages were fantastic.” The pair are back in action in two weeks’ time when the World Rally Championship moves to the island of Sardinia for Rally Italia.