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Australian rally driver Molly Taylor has finished fifth outright after a challenging final round of the WRC Academy.  Run in rain, mud, sleet and heavy fog, Wales Rally GB (November 10-13) was the grand final for this year’s World Rally Championship series, and for the six-round, junior driver development series that has been run this year as a sub-category.

During the weekend Molly and British co-driver Seb Marshall posted their first ever stage win of the WRC Academy series, and a number of top five stage times. The young Sydneysider says she’s very happy with the result – but worn out!  “It was great to see how much we have improved, in terms of our times – it’s really good for my confidence. I was surprised when we won the stage because I didn’t think we were going that fast. It was incredibly foggy and we had been slowed down by two other competitors that we caught and passed on the way through.

“Obviously a podium would have been great and it would be easy to say ‘what if’, but I wouldn’t be the only one saying that! We had a couple of punctures and one of those was a situation where the jack wouldn’t let the car down and we lost nearly four minutes.  “The other was a slow puncture early in a stage, and we lost about 40 seconds because we drove through the stage with the tyre going down. So, yes, if that hadn’t happened, we might have had a podium, but that’s all part and parcel of the sport. I’m just really pleased with this event because it shows how far we have come.”

Molly is now planning ahead for 2012, with the aim of a repeat run at the WRC Academy series, and selected events in Britain and Europe, but first she has to find the funding.  “I have a couple of meetings lined up already, and my mission for the next month is to talk to as many people as I can, to try to find a budget for next year.

“This year has been an incredible experience. It was a matter of jumping in at the deep end and trying to find our feet. Obviously, if I look back, I can see things that I could have done better, but now we have a handle on what needs to be done and how to do it, so we need to work on how we move on from here.  “I’d like to thank Pirelli and M-Sport and the FIA for an amazing year – it has just been fantastic – and to all my supporters, for all your help and messages of encouragement. Hopefully this is just another step along the way of where we want to go.”

To celebrate her result, Molly ate some junk food and – she estimates – nearly a kilo of chocolate! Now she’s focussed on finding funding for next year, and coming home to spend Christmas with family and friends.

The WRC Academy is a one-make, development series aimed at bringing the best young rally talent in the world to elite levels. Molly and co-driver Seb Marshall and their Academy rivals drove identical Ford Fiesta R2s prepared by Ford’s WRC specialists, M-Sport, with tyres provided by Pirelli. The inaugural WRC Academy championship was won by Irish driver, Craig Breen.

Molly was one of six of the drivers on a fully funded scholarship for 2011, covering all her WRC expenses. That scholarship funding is now finished. More information about Molly and Seb is available on Molly’s website: <http://www.mollytaylor.com.au>

Australian rally driver Molly Taylor is pleased with her pace after last weekend’s Rally of Scotland, having set some of the fastest times in her class. While the 23-year-old Sydneysider and British co-driver Seb Marshall did not finish the event, courtesy of a broken control arm bolt, they were in a close battle for first in their class.

“I am really happy with what we achieved in this event,” Molly says.  “Obviously we’re disappointed not to finish, but the idea was to drive as fast as we could, get some more miles under our belts and battle with the top guys in our class, and we did all of that. “The conditions were very tricky – rough, slippery, definitely not easy – but it was the most fun I’ve had in conditions like that, and it was great preparation for the last Academy round in Wales next month [Rally GB, November 10-13].”

Molly and Seb were second in class and 21st outright, when the control arm bolt snapped 18km into a 25km stage, the final forest stage of the event. As a result, the drive shaft pulled out and they lost all drive, which they discovered when they turned into a corner and couldn’t drive out.  “But we did what we wanted to do. Our goal was to increase our pace against the other Fiesta drivers, and we were right up there. We were in second, but the gap to first was very close. However the main thing is that we were on the pace – now we have to take that speed, and the confidence we’ve gained, into Rally GB.”

The final round of this year’s world rally championship is also the final round of the WRC Academy, the one-make junior driver development series Molly has been contesting all year. But she is not prepared to leave the Scottish event as her only preparation in the lead-up to this crucial event. “Rally Spain is on this weekend and if all goes to plan, I want to do the reconnaissance over there for some more experience. Then, the week before Rally GB, I have another meeting of the FIA Women & Motor Sport Commission in Paris.

I’m going to go to Europe a few days before the meeting and do some more training at Vittorio Caneva's rally school in Italy.” Molly spent two days with Caneva in the lead-up to the WRC round In France. He is well known in European rallying circles, having fine-tuned the skills of Kris Meeke, Guy Wilks and Xavier Pons. Wilks was one of the competitors in Scotland last weekend, along with other well-known international drivers such as Alister McRae, Toni Gardemeister, Toshi Arai and Fumio Nutahara.

They were among 40 entrants who lined up for the three-day gravel contest, which was the penultimate round of the hotly contested 11-event Intercontinental Rally Challenge series. Featuring some of the fastest and most spectacular roads on the IRC calendar, Rally of Scotland started at Stirling Castle and finished at Scone Palace, where the kings of Scotland were crowned in centuries past. Molly and Seb drove a Ford Fiesta R2 in the Scottish event, identical to the model that all the WRC Academy competitors use. The Academy cars are prepared by Ford’s WRC specialists, M-Sport, with tyres supplied by Pirelli. Molly is one of six drivers in the Pirelli Star Driver programme, which has provided a fully funded scholarship for this year, covering all her WRC expenses.

Australian rally driver Molly Taylor has finished fifth in the World Rally Championship Academy round in France, her best result for the year. In an incredibly difficult event that tested even the leading WRC drivers, the young Australian and British co-driver Seb Marshall set their sights on a strong finish in Rallye de France and achieved it.

“I’m really happy because I needed to get a good clean result and fifth is more than I expected, but the reality is all about where our performance is and where it needs to be,” Molly says.  “Obviously it is great to get a result and some points in what was a really tough event with a lot of attrition. We were focussed on staying on the road and not making any mistakes and we achieved that.  “This rally certainly highlighted how far we have come, but also how much further we have to go, so while we are obviously very pleased with the result – especially for Pirelli, and the Australian Motor Sport Foundation and everyone who has supported us – it’s not as if we can just sit back and relax. We need to keep pushing to make improvements wherever we can.”

To that end, Molly and Seb will tackle Rally of Scotland this weekend (October 7-9), a three-day gravel contest that is the penultimate round of the highly contested 11-event Intercontinental Rally Challenge series. Academy rivals Craig Breen and Alastair Fisher are also on the entry list. “It will be good to get back out on the gravel. The last round in Wales (Wales Rally GB, November 10-13) is all gravel, so the aim for this weekend is to get out there and put everything we’ve learned so far into practice with the ultimate goal of a strong result in Wales to finish off the year.”

The Scottish round boasts some of the fastest and most spectacular roads on the IRC calendar, winding their way through the picturesque Perthshire and Stirlingshire countryside in the centre of Scotland. The event gets underway with two short stages on Friday night (October 7) after a ceremonial start at Stirling Castle. It finishes on Sunday at Scone Palace, on the outskirts of Perth, where the kings of Scotland were crowned in centuries past.

After last weekend’s run in France, Molly grabbed a handy 10 points in the championship tally for the WRC Academy, a one-make, development series aimed at bringing the best young rally talent in the world to elite levels. They are tackling six rounds of the WRC, with Wales Rally GB the last of the six.  All the Academy competitors drive identical Ford Fiesta R2s prepared by Ford’s WRC specialists, M-Sport, with tyres supplied by Pirelli. Molly is one of six drivers in the Pirelli Star Driver programme, which provides a fully funded scholarship for the year, covering all her WRC expenses.

Australian rally driver Molly Taylor is ready for a start in round five of the WRC Academy Cup series, after tackling an intensive tarmac training course in Italy. Rallye de France Alsace (September 29-October 2) is the second of the six-round junior development series to be run on tarmac and as preparation for it, Molly has spent two days honing her skills at the Vittorio Caneva Rally School. Caneva is well-known in European rallying circles, having fine-tuned the likes of Kris Meeke, Guy Wilks and Xavier Pons.

“I was given the chance to do this and I couldn’t knock it back,” the 23-year-old Sydneysider says. It’s a great opportunity to polish my tarmac skills and learn some new ones before the start of this next event. Vittorio has worked wonders for a lot of drivers, so I’m confident of being able to reap the benefit of his expertise.”

This is the second year in a row that France’s World Rally Championship qualifier will take place in the country’s Alsace region to the east following its move away from Corsica, the event’s home from 1973 until 2008. Alsace is Sebastien Loeb country and the Citroen ace secured his seventh world crown last year on a special stage run through the streets of his hometown of Haguenau. This year’s event will also close with a power stage in Haguenau but the Academy competitors will not be involved. They only contest two of the three days of the event, with the final day spent analysing their performances.

After France, there is just one more round of the series (Rally GB, November 11-13) and Molly is already considering what she will do in 2012. One option is to contest the Academy Cup series again next year, to expand on what she has learned so far, but she will need to replace the scholarship funding she received this year for the World Rally Championship support category. “I’ve had a brilliant opportunity with Pirelli and the FIA this year but it’s a one-year programme. After the final Academy round takes place at Wales Rally GB in November, I’ll be back to square one so I’ll need to find those dollars to carry on. I really would like to do it again. In terms of what I’m hoping to achieve in the longer term, it would definitely be the smartest move. I’ve learned a lot this year, so I’m optimistic that I could mount a proper attack next year in terms of results and championship positions – but it is just one of the options I am looking at, and as with any category of motorsport, it’s all about finding the money, so that will definitely be one of my priorities over the next few months.”

Molly has just returned to Europe after coming home to Australia for a two-week break. But she couldn’t keep away from her sport, heading up the NSW north coast to spectate at the Australian round of the WRC. “It was great to go back and catch up with everyone, especially at Rally Australia. It’s always hard to leave everyone to come back over here, but at the same time I’m very excited about what lies ahead. We’re certainly out to do the best we can in this round and set ourselves up for another great year next year.”

The WRC Academy is a one-make, development series aimed at bringing the best young rally talent in the world to elite levels. They are tackling six rounds of the WRC, with France being round five. All the Academy competitors drive identical Ford Fiesta R2s prepared by Ford’s WRC specialists, M-Sport, with tyres provided by Pirelli. Molly is one of six of the drivers on a fully funded scholarship for the year, covering all her WRC expenses. She’s partnered by experience British co-driver, Seb Marshall.

Australian rally driver Molly Taylor admits to mixed emotions after a tough run in the first all-tarmac round of the 2011 World Rally Championship, the ADAC Rallye Deutschland. The 23-year-old Sydneysider and her colleagues in the WRC Academy junior development series contested two of the three days of the event (August 19-21), which was based in the historic city of Trier in Germany’s wine-producing Mosel region.

Molly and British co-driver Seb Marshall were quietly confident of a decent result as they headed into the rally following some promising tarmac test sessions, but the challenges started on the very first stage and they finished 14th outright in the Academy field. “I clipped a corner and bent the rear beam on the first special stage and had to drive the next two stages with one rear wheel pointing in a very different direction to the other one!” Molly says. “It was obviously a challenge but extremely disappointing to lose so much time. The guys fixed it during service and all was going well on the next stage until a driveshaft broke on a rough section of tarmac, so Day One was over early for us.”

Under WRC rules, Molly and Seb were able to rejoin the field for Day Two, but they were starting from further back in the field and that brought problems of its own. “We were making lots of improvements in our driving but we struggled to get a clean run because we had the problem of catching slower cars in the stages. That made it difficult to put in a good stage time, which was very frustrating.  “As a result, I have very mixed emotions. I’m encouraged because we don't have much experience on tarmac and we definitely made improvements but at the same time it was frustrating to not get a clean run. We still have a big gap to make up.”

Molly is pleased to have had the experience in Germany because the next round the WRC Academy crews tackle is Rallye de France Alsace (September 29-October 2), which is also on tarmac. But first there is a short break back at home. “I'm back at work at M-Sport this week, so it will be really busy, but I am so looking forward to heading home for a couple of weeks and coming to spectate at Rally Australia. It will be good to catch up with all my rally friends before I head back over here and the last two rounds of the season.”

The WRC Academy is a one-make, development series aimed at bringing the best young rally talent in the world to elite levels. They are tackling six rounds of the WRC, with Germany being round four. All the Academy competitors drive identical Ford Fiesta R2s prepared by Ford’s WRC specialists, M-Sport, with tyres provided by Pirelli. Molly is one of six of the drivers on a fully funded scholarship for the year, covering all her WRC expenses.

Australian rally driver Molly Taylor is set for the first all-tarmac round of the 2011 World Rally Championship, the ADAC Rallye Deutschland.

The 23-year-old Sydneysider and her colleagues in the WRC Academy junior development series will tackle two of the three days of the event (August 19-21), which is based in the historic city of Trier in Germany’s wine-producing Mosel region.

This first tarmac event on the calendar features different types of asphalt surfaces and long stages, so it promises to be challenging, but Molly and British co-driver Seb Marshall are feeling quietly confident.

“There’s a bit of a mixture of anticipation and excitement heading into Germany,” Molly says.

“It’s the first tarmac event for the Academy so I think the dynamics of the Championship will change for sure and it will be interesting to see what happens.

“For me, the aim is to focus on my job and drive my own rally. Coming from Australia, most of my rallying has been done on gravel, so I am still learning the tarmac but we have done some really good testing and I feel a lot more confident on the surface.

“Now the challenge is transferring the pace I achieved on the test onto the rally. I want to use every stage in Germany to get one more step forward. It will be good experience for me and to be developing in such a strong field will be a great opportunity.”

Experienced campaigners suggest this is an event which demands an extremely high level of concentration, particularly in the Baumholder military training area, where giant boulders, known as hinkelsteins, line the route.

There are very fast sections and tighty, twisty sections, with both narrow and wide asphalt roads of differing surface types, and gravel, mud and dust also part of the mix. For success, a driver has to be capable on every surface.

One of the highlights of the event is the ‘Circus Maximus’ super-special demonstration stage, which runs through the centre of Germany’s oldest city.

The event kicks off with a ceremonial start at Trier’s Porta Nigra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, at 8pm local time on Thursday, August 18 (4am, Friday, Sydney time).

The WRC Academy is a one-make, development series aimed at bringing the best young rally talent in the world to elite levels. They are tackling six rounds of the WRC, with Germany being round four.

All the Academy competitors drive identical Ford Fiesta R2s prepared by Ford’s WRC specialists, M-Sport, with tyres provided by Pirelli. Molly is one of six of the drivers on a fully funded scholarship for the year, covering all her WRC expenses.

Molly will be doing regular video blogs in the lead-up to next weekend. You can check them out on the video page of her website:  and more information about Molly and Seb is available on this website:

Australian rally driver Molly Taylor admits to mixed feelings after finishing the toughest event of her career to date, the Neste Oil Rally Finland.

Molly posted some top seven stage times in the WRC Academy category of the fastest round of the World Rally Championship, finishing ninth outright after a weekend that combined challenge, frustration and exhilaration.

“We had a slow puncture on the very first stage and made the call to keep going, but we eventually had to change it, so we lost a lot of time. We made up ground but not enough.

“Had that not happened and everything else played out as it did, we probably would have finished around sixth, but you can’t think like that. Yes, it was disappointing but you just take what happens and run with it, and looking at the positives from Finland, it’s very clear we have gained pace compared to the first two rounds of the series.

“The encouraging thing is we know what we need to do to get even closer, so that’s what we need to focus on. But, of course, it’s one thing to know what you need to do and another thing to make it happen.”

Molly says the improvement was very obvious in the faster sections of the three-day rally; it was the slower corners where she felt she was struggling, so she now heads to the next round in Germany (ADAC Rally Deutschland, August 18-21) with yet more ‘homework’ to do.

She came into the Finland event having worked hard on her pace notes and says she and new co-driver, experienced WRC co-pilot Seb Marshall, felt the work had paid off. They will continue to fine-tune the system, especially coming into the tarmac event in Germany.

“I have to admit I have some mixed feelings about moving to tarmac since most of my experience is on gravel, but I am actually quite excited by the new challenge.

“I really loved Finland because the speeds were fantastic. I can see why they call it the ‘gravel grand prix’ because it was so fast and so technical. It’s an event which has always been on my wishlist and while it’s a great feeling to have done it, right now I wish I could turn around and do it all over again – but I know how to approach it with more speed!” she laughs.

Molly and Seb are now en route to Germany, along with many of their colleagues from the WRC Academy, with plans to do some tarmac testing as part of preparing for the event.

The WRC Academy is a one-make, development series aimed at bringing the best young rally talent in the world to elite levels. Germany is round four of six WRC events they contest this year. All competitors in the group drive identical Ford Fiesta R2s prepared by Ford’s WRC specialists, M-Sport, with tyres provided by Pirelli.

Molly is one of six of the drivers on a fully funded scholarship for the year, covering all her WRC expenses. More information about Molly and Seb Marshall is available on this website.

Molly Taylor will go into her next world rally championship round in Finland with renewed confidence after a shakedown event in Estonia over the weekend.

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Molly Taylor is looking forward to being back in the forest this weekend, as she tackles Auto 24 Rally Estonia as part of her world rally championship preparation plan.

Molly and new co-driver – experienced WRC co-pilot, Seb Marshall – are now in Estonia, preparing for reconnaissance (Thursday and Friday) before the event kicks off in earnest on Friday afternoon.

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