Gilmour will drive her Production Class Subaru Impreza WRX on the November 16-18 New Zealand event, but rather than returning to Dunedin at the rally’s conclusion, she will now fly to Britain to prepare for the final championship round, the Wales Rally GB.
As was the case on her two earlier appearances on European rounds (in Germany and Finland) of the WRC this year, the 26 year old will drive a Ford Fiesta ST in the Fiesta Sporting Trophy segment of the British event.
“Once again, Castrol have been instrumental in making this possible,” Gilmour says. “In fact, they have been pushing me to commit to returning for the British event for some time now, but it has just taken a few weeks to put all of the arrangements in place.”
Gilmour says she has unfinished business to attend to in Europe, having demonstrated her speed by beating all of the regular Fiesta Sporting Trophy drivers to fastest time through the famous Ouininpohja stage on the Rally of Finland, before her car suffered an engine failure.
“Now I know I have the pace, the challenge will be making it to the end of the British event well-up in the Fiesta Sporting Trophy field,” she says. “The conditions in Britain are probably closer to those I am used to here in New Zealand.”
Should Gilmour perform well on the British event, she also has the chance of gaining a wildcard entry into the end of year Fiesta Sporting Challenge shootout.
“I don’t know that much about it at this stage, except that it is a weekend-long event that includes psychological analysis and profiling, as well as driving,” she says.
Once again, her rivals in Britain will include Mathieu Biasion, a younger cousin of two-times world champion Miki Biasion, and Alessandro Bettega, whose father was a factory rally driver for Lancia in the 1980s. Gilmour’s co-driver for the event will be British-based woman Claire Mole, who sat alongside her on the Rally of Finland.
While overseas she will also undertake promotional work for next year’s Otago Rally, with the aim of attracting drivers from Britain, in particular, to the April event.
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