M-Sport's Malcolm Wilson hails Rally GB's new route

Wilson admitted he was surprised at how much the event organisers had achieved from last year, during a rally the Cumbrian felt was an embarrassment to British sport.

After 13 years in Cardiff, the rally shifted its base to Deeside on the English-Welsh border and the new service park allied to a dynamic new route attracted spectators in their thousands.

"I'm excited by this rally," said Wilson. "I'm pleased for everybody involved with this - it's just a shame it's taken a decade to get here.

"I'm surprised at how quickly they have turned this around and, don't get me wrong, there's a long way to go to be best in the world, but we've had more people in service here at six in the morning than we had in Cardiff City Centre at a mid-day or in the evening."

The exceptional demand for Saturday and Sunday's RallyFest stages caused significant traffic problems for spectators, but event chief executive Andrew Coe took criticism of Chirk Castle especially on the chin.

"The degree of success has taken us slightly by surprise, resulting in the issues at Chirk," said Coe.

"We hold our hands up to that. We're on the right track and now we will go away and look at the way we work with the spectators.

"The problem we have is a nice problem to have and certainly one we would have liked not so long ago. This has been a massive achievement to reinvigorate and redesign this event in the way we have."