WITH only five points covering the two main title challengers in the 2024 Circuit Rally Championship, Knutsford racer Michael Igoe and his co-driver Will Atkins headed to Snetterton to resume battle with their rivals, writes Ste McNorton.

With six stages planned for the day, Igoe and Atkins were seeded number two and so would be chasing their rivals John Griffiths and Emma Morrison from the off, but with the goal of overhauling them as soon as possible.

After stage one it was advantage Igoe who was flying in the rapid Fiesta R5 and streaked ahead, taking the stage win by over 16 seconds Stage two then saw the two rivals set exact times, before stage three brought about Igoe losing 12 seconds due to a poor tyre choice, which opened things up again.

Stage four was so close with Igoe being only one second quicker, but then disaster struck for Griffiths and Morrison as they were hit with a one-minute penalty for an infringement on stage three.

Stages five and six were then almost irrelevant, but Igoe still kept pushing though as did Morrison.

However, Igoe had superior speed and pulled out over 30 seconds across these stages to take a dominant win and take a strong grip on the championship.

The next round will be at Anglesey on March 3.