[1]
Fresh from winning the Knockhill Stages (February 16), then a strong finish in round one of the British Rally Championship in Yorkshire last weekend, former Scottish Rally Champion Peter Stewart has posted his entry for BCIC Rally Barbados 2025. He is one of three newcomers from Scotland confirmed today (February 28) who were persuaded to commit to the event by Andy Scott, who returns for the sixth time this year.
BCIC RB25, the Caribbean’s biggest motor sport international, will run from Friday, May 30 to Sunday, June 1. The Auto & Rally Show, where every car entered is on display in an annual celebration of island rallying, and the final shakedown and seeding event, First Citizens King of the Hill, fill the previous weekend (May 24/25).
Scott, who finished third overall and won FIA R5 in RB19, is back with his WRC class Ford Fiesta S2000T with new co-driver Owen Paterson, who was a class-winner in Yorkshire. Scott says: “I have enjoyed every minute of my time rallying in Barbados, so I suppose I do talk about it a bit! And it certainly seems to have worked. There’s probably 20 or so people coming out with the Stewart family and Lee Hastings and I’m chuffed to have introduced some more new people to the event.”
With co-driver and fellow Scottish Champion Harry Marchbank, Stewart will campaign his Citroen C3 Rally2 in the FIA R5 class, while his father Richard will drive the first Peugeot 208 Rally4 to compete in the island in Modified 1, co-driven by Carin Tait-Logan. Also ticking Rally Barbados off their ‘bucket lists’ are Lee Hastings, who will tackle Modified 4 with son Cole co-driving the family’s Subaru Impreza GC8.
Stewart won the single-venue Knockhill event by just two seconds after a day-long fight with Ross Hunter’s Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX as they swapped stage wins on the slippery race circuit tarmac, even setting equal times on SS6; Hunter won five, Stewart four, including – crucially – the last of the 10 by 3secs, to take the win. In Yorkshire, on last Sunday’s East Riding Stages Rally, he finished 20th overall on another treacherous day when 49 of the more than 160 starters failed to finish, many sliding off the road.
Driving his previous Peugeot 208 Rally4, Stewart won six Scottish Rally Championship titles during 2021 & ’22, finishing 9th overall in 2021, including the FIA 2wd, PRO2 Class, Scottish 2wd and the Challengers title for drivers who had not previously finished in the top 10 in any major championships.
Peter’s father Richard and co-driver of 15 years Tait-Logan also survived the tricky conditions in Knockhill, finishing third in class, and again reached the finish in Yorkshire. Having campaigned a Peugeot 208 Rally4 since 2021, the crew won PRO2 in the Scottish Championship last year and will give a brand new 208 its rally debut in Barbados.
Having first rallied a Ford Anglia in 1971, Richard competed occasionally for a decade before dropping out until 2010, when he returned to campaign a Subaru Impreza for five years, then, briefly a Volkswagen Polo S2000. He then took another break from the sport, returning with the Peugeot.
Lee and Cole Hastings finished sixth in the Knockhill event but, like Peter Stewart, they had a day-long battle, in their case with Barry Groundwater (Evo IX), who finished 11th in Barbados in 2019, and co-driver Ashleigh Will, who won the WRC class in BCIC RB24 with Fraser Louden. Hastings was ahead on four stages, but Groundwater prevailed on six, edging Hastings for the place by just five seconds.
Having started rallying in 2005 in a Peugeot 205 GTi, Hastings has been driving his current Impreza since 2007, with Cole joining him as co-driver 10 years later. In a varied career, he has competed extensively including iconic events such as Wales Rally GB and the Circuit of Ireland, winning year-end class titles in Irish Championships and the North of England Tarmac Championship.
Rally Barbados is a tarmac rally, with around 20 special stages run on the island’s intricate network of public roads, under road closure orders granted by the Ministry of Transport & Works; the previous Sunday’s King of the Hill ‘shakedown’, run under a similar arrangement, features four timed runs on a roughly four-kilometre stage, the results of which are used to seed the running order for the main event.
For media information only. No regulatory value.
For further media information: e-mail - robin@bradfax.com [4]
www.rallybarbados.net [5]; www.barbadosrallyclub.com [6]
Facebook/BarbadosRallyClub; instagram/@barbadosrallyclub
