SHANDON rally star Fraser Anderson has praised his team for the effort put in to helping him finish second in the Junior Belgian Rally Championship’s first event of the season.

Anderson and his co-driver Darragh Mullen made a solid start to their 2023 campaign – despite what Anderson described as “one of the trickest events I have ever done”.

An engine issue forced Anderson’s EDSL Sport team to create what he described as “a bit of a hybrid car” between his own Fiesta and one of the team’s customer cars with less than a week to go before the start of the event.

Reflecting on the experience, Anderson said: “We struggled quite a lot to find traction out of the muddy junctions and slower sections compared to our competitors in the Renaults with their traction system, which unfortunately ended up really costing us time wise.

“Also doing the last two stages with our light pod looking more at the sky than the road made for quite the challenge.

“But we were able to stay in touch by grabbing some stage wins throughout the event, pushing on quite a bit in the medium and high speed sections, keeping the times between us to tenths of seconds which made for some very enjoyable driving.

“A huge thank you to EDSL Sport for monstrous effort that went into creating a bit of a hybrid car between ours and one of their customer cars. Without the mighty effort from the guys over the weekend we would never have made it to the rally in the first place.”

Anderson also thanked his sponsors Baxter and Gillespie, Akzo Nobel, Cardowan Creameries, HSS Services (Glasgow), Pirelli and Speedline Corse UK - as well as Duntocher Tyres for their support.

To find out more about giving your backing to his 2023 plans, email George Anderson on surveying@BaxterandGillespie.co.uk.