Reigning British Ladies Rally champion Nabila Tejpar was overjoyed to have secured a solid start to her season in the Peugeot Rallye Cup Iberica last weekend, overcoming difficult conditions at the Vodafone Rally de Portugal (17th – 20th May) to finish 11th overall in the competitive single-make series.
Tejpar, from Maldon in Essex manged to pick her way carefully around the rutted, rocky and extreme stages to ensure she could record a finish in the opening round of the season which kicked off at the sixth round of the FIA World Rally Championship near Porto in Portugal.
Co-driven by Richard Bliss, the 24-year-old driver would contest only her second ever WRC event and the notorious rally is dubbed as one of the toughest on the World tour. With stages that claimed many experienced drivers thanks to its unforgiving nature, Tejpar stayed out of trouble to ensure she could cross the Peugeot Sport Cup finish on Friday night.
Not content with her superb result, Tejpar also elected to continue in the Portuguese National Rally Championship event which offered a further three stages on Saturday. Once again, a mature drive saw Tejpar take her first European podium by finishing second in class and seventh overall.
The opening round of the Cup would see 21 identical Peugeot 208 R2’s compete over the opening nine stages of the World Rally Championship qualifier. With some of the best rally drivers in the world contesting the stages beforehand, the surface would inevitably be deeply rutted and unpredictable for the Peugeot crews who would follow behind.
A successful pre-event test allowed Tejpar to acclimatise back into the 208 before a head-to-head spectator stage around the Lousdada RallyCross Circuit kicked off the event on Thursday night. Tejpar was paired with fellow Brit Cameron Davies at the circuit but lost out to the Welshman on times.
