Huge Determination From Jagger At Rally NZ
Wednesday 3 September 2008, 7:05PM
By New Zealand Ford Fiesta Sporting Trophy 2008
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If it can happen to the best of them then it can happen to Ford Fiesta driver Ben Jagger.
A determined effort by the 18 year old from Whangarei was rewarded with an 18 second lead in the points paying Saturday leg of the Ford Fiesta Sporting Trophy at the Rally of New Zealand last weekend.
Unfortunately it all came crumbling down for Jagger in the final stage of the day when Jagger hit a soft spot on the road putting the rally car onto it's side.
Here he lost around 16 minutes and consequently handed the lead to second placed Brendon Reeves who went on to win the day.
Ben Jagger along with his co-driver Ben Hawkins had been on fire all day on Saturday and leading the Fiesta pack through the most important points scoring leg of the weekend right from the opening stage.
The Northland pair were quickest on all previous stages bar the Mystery Creek Super Special Stage and looking to close the championship gap to Patrick Malley before heading to the final round in Nelson in just over two weeks.
The unlucky break was not unlike the cruel twist of fate which was to ruin the rally for the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team the next day.
On Sunday the team's two WRC cars entered the final special stage of Rally of New Zealand holding both first and second place.
In that stage, with only the Mystery Creek Super Special remaining, both Miko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala met with incidents which completely threw the rally open to Citroen who then claimed those first and second places for themselves.
Latvala never made it to the end of the stage and although Hirvonen overcame a puncture he was only able to pick up the pieces to narrowly hold onto third place for the rally.
Before Rally NZ Jagger was trailing Malley by 13 points but will now go on to contest the final round at Nelson looking for a win and the outside chance of making up the larger 21 point gap between the two.
With no more than three Ford Fiesta rally cars expected to contest at Nelson, it appears that Malley will just need to finish the rally in order to score enough points to secure this season's championship.
Both Jagger and Malley have retired from three legs each this season, including both retiring from Friday's first leg at Rally NZ. In that light we can see that in rallying anything can happen and Malley is not guaranteed the title just yet.
The two drivers have offered an exciting element to the Ford Fiesta Sporting Trophy as they traded the lead over the season.
Jagger was leading the run after the second round at Rally Otago only to lose it to Malley after the beleaguered Rally of Hawkes Bay round four.
There Jagger let the lead slip when he went off the road on day one and was unable to fight back on day two after it was cancelled due to the weather and impassable road conditions.
Over the weekend at the Rally of New Zealand Ben Jagger and Ben Hawkins were able to meet with Malcolm Wilson, M-Sport and the
BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team.
Mr Wilson and his company M-Sport are offering the winner of the NZ Ford Fiesta Sporting Trophy a trip to the UK where they will compete against other drivers from around the world for a position within his squad.
"We managed to get a tour around the service park with the team which was pretty cool. They have about four kiwis on the team, there seems to be a lot of them in motorsport around the world." said Jagger.