Cantabrian Brian Stokes is relishing his latest top level rally car, a Ford Fiesta AP4. Winner of the NZ Rally Championship in both 1985 and 1988, Stokes has never really retired and took the opportunity to compete in the Lone Star Canterbury Rally last weekend in one of the newest AP4 category cars, a Ford Fiesta.
“We are essentially here to learn about the car and do some testing,” commented Stokes.
“This is probably the first time I have really driven it like this. It’s a proper car. Having said that a lot of my (previous) cars have been the top spec of what I can drive. They have all been fantastic.”
Stokes has been driving Fords for as long as he can remember, chalking up some notable wins on the domestic front.
“I’ve had a couple of Escort Cosworths but they were quite a bit different, less powerful and less responsive. The Escorts were 4×4 that had morphed from the Sierra 4×4 which we were use to competing in.”
Having won the NZ Rally Championship in 1985 driving a Ford Escort RS (BDA), Stokes won again in 1988 driving a Ford Sierra 4×4. He can’t remember how many times he has won the Canterbury Rally.
“I’ve have won it four or five times. 1983 was the second rally I have ever won in a little 1600 Escort and that was pretty special as we only had a little Class car and beat the overall cars
“All the cars I have rallied have been pretty special. The 4WD Ford Sierra Cosworth was a real ‘nut-job’, really fast and we had a great battle with Neil Allport in the ’91 Rally NZ which went on for four days. that was just fantastic.”
Now with the latest technology, what is his new Ford Fiesta AP4 car like to drive?
“It is a matter of getting confidence with this (AP4) thing. It is a modern car, we have to fine tune so much of it. It is quite a bit different with the suspension and diff settings etc.
“I love the concept and set out to see if we could build something competitive at a price. We have been a wee bit shy of that as we didn’t do a lot of development on the original engine (a 1.6 litre turbo). Now we have a really good engine from Force Motorsport. The 1.8 litre made it a lot more achievable with the technology. The 1.6 was direct injection and very complicated.”
Stokes debuted the car at the 2018 Coromandel Rally with the 1.6 litre turbo engine but then moved to the 1.8 litre turbo for Rally Otago in April.
The car proved to be extremely quick in the hands of Australian driver Brendan Reeves and co-driver Rhianon Gelsomino, winning three of the six stages in the NZ Rally Championship category before retiring (alternator), but returned for Day 2 winning a further two stages in the Nz Rally Champs.
“So we went to the 1.8 litre engine, thanks to MotorSport NZ allowing it. It may be more weight but there is some more power and better torque.
“We can tune and develop the engine ourselves whereas with the 1.6 we had to rely on talking with people on the other-side of the world.
“Otago was a real eye opening. The commitment level really struck me how much we potentially have to do to keep up. Brendon (Reeves) made it go really fast and since then we have developed it further. He certainly helped to step things up.”
Son Robbie is currently competing in a Ford Fiesta R2 (2WD) along with sister Amy Stokes sitting in the co-driver’s seat.
“The aim is for Robbie to get into this at some stage. He is going really well in the R2 (Ford Fiesta) and learning. I think it is really important to drive a front-wheel drive car flat out potentially before you drive something like this (AP4) to learn the art.
“Look at the two Frenchman Ogier and Loeb, both front-wheel drive specialist. You don’t get into the bad habits of doing ‘Scandinavian-flicks’ and think you’re going fast.
“That’s the plan so I’m driving to get some miles in the car and figuring it out. ”
Stokes plans to be at the wheel for the next NZRC round in a fortnight, the South Canterbury Rally.
Comments