Alastair Fisher produced a remarkable comeback drive to claim his first ever Circuit of Ireland rally victory.

Fisher’s chances of winning the most iconic event in the Irish rallying calendar looked all but over after the first day’s action saw him languishing back in fourth place, 35 seconds adrift of the leader, but he posted fastest times on each of the final four stages to claw his way to the top of the leader board, eventually claiming victory with more than 11 seconds to spare.

The win is Fisher’s second ever success on a round of the Irish Tarmac Championship after his Galway Rally win in 2020, but he has hailed this Circuit victory as the best of his rallying career.

“When you come back like that I think it certainly is,” he admitted.

“I don’t think it has really sunk in yet. It is a special one to win. It is one of the most famous events and even though it’s not the circuit of old, my name is still on that trophy. That’s a special one to get – it was unbelievable!”

Alastair went into the event knowing that he had to start to make inroads into Josh Moffett’s Tarmac Championship lead, but it was Desi Henry who was a surprise leader after day one, topping the timesheets in his Fiesta by ten seconds after six stages on Good Friday.

Callum Devine held second spot ahead of Moffett, with Fisher 19 seconds adrift of Moffett and seemingly cut adrift of the leading trio.

Alastair posted the second-fastest time on Saturday’s first test, but there was little sign of the drama that was to unfold over the closing four stages.

Stage eight saw Fisher go five seconds quicker than anyone else, and on the following stage another fastest time saw him leap to second as Henry hit trouble and Moffett took the lead. Another seven second chunk was taken out of Moffett’s advantage on the penultimate stage, as the pair went into the final stage separated by a mere 0.2 seconds.

With Fisher determined not to let the opportunity slip away, he posted a stunning final stage time 11.8 seconds quicker than his rival. “That was the biggest charge I ever went on,” he admitted.

“Both of us knew going into the last stage that it was up for grabs and there was 14 miles to swing it.

“When you are sitting on the start line you realise what could be at the end of the 14 miles, but we were calm, and we went for it.

“The notes were good, and the car was good, Gordon [Noble] was top-class, so there was nothing stopping us from doing it. We hit one silage bale coming out of a chicane and apart from that all went okay. The nature of that final stage meant you really had to be on it to get the time.”

Alastair acknowledged that he was not looking like a likely winner as the competitors reached the overnight halt, but he never gave up hope of a late fightback.

“When you are 30 seconds down on an Irish tarmac event there are a lot of things that have to go right to get the win, but we had good pace on Saturday and that was what won it for us,” he reflected.

“It’s not often, with the competitive nature of Irish rallying, that you are able to come back like that, but we seemed to get an unbelievable flow going on Saturday morning.

“We were a step quicker than everybody else all day and we were able to keep that consistency across the last four stages.

“I felt the time was there to take and thankfully we were able to do it and make no mistakes. Desi Henry was going very well, but I felt that we were pushing forward and we would have done enough ourselves to win it anyway.”

Fisher admitted he was disappointed with the early season showing in Galway and West Cork, but he is now right back in the mix for the Irish Tarmac Championship.

“I have been frustrated this year,” he conceded. “There have been glimpses of our pace in Galway and West Cork and we have had fastest and second-fastest times, but there has just been something lacking and I have struggled to get the perfect feeling and commit to things. I’ve struggled to get a good rhythm.

‘A lot of effort’

“I knew everything was right with everything around me and I had to get myself in gear, and that happened on Saturday. We have been putting in a lot of effort behind the scenes and I knew if we could get it to work that would be good.

“We are up to second in the championship now and when you take dropped scores into account, we are only a few points behind Josh.

“It’s a good time of the year to be starting to creep up again and with only two weeks to Killarney, hopefully we can keep that flow going.”