Chennai, July 4: With a second-place finish at the Rally Liepaja, Team MRF Tyres today registered their first-ever podium since entering the European Rally Championship in 2020.

It was a hard-fought podium with Craig Breen and Paul Nagle battling against Europe’s best throughout the day.

The day’s action saw six stages and 90.92 km of action in warm and sunny conditions on roads around the Latvian coastal town of Liepaja.

The Team MRF Tyres Hyundai i20 R5 started the day in second place, involved in a great fight with Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (VW), Efrén Llarena/ Sara Fernández (Skoda), and Alexey Lukyanuk/Dmitriy Eremeev (Citroën).

Just 13.4 seconds separated the four cars.

The day started with the 18.42 km Neste stage where Breen and Nagle came in third in the stage with a time of 9:18.2, just 3.4 seconds off the lead.

The pace was repeated on the second stage of the day, with Breen/Nagle taking second just 3.1 seconds off the stage win on the Invest in Liepaja! stage. Third, on stage nine, solidified Team MRF Tyres second place going into the final service.

With just three stages remaining, Breen and Nagle sat in second 15.2 seconds off Gryzain/Konstantin in the lead and 16.0 seconds ahead of Lukanuk/Eremeev in third.

After the final service, SS10 saw a repeat of the Neste stage with Breen/Nagle coming home in the fifth, 3.9 seconds off the stage win.

The eleventh stage would be a new one for the rally with the 9.93 km blast setting up a grandstand finish.

Breen and Nagle were able to bring the car home third on the final stage to finish second in the overall standings as they stood at the final stop line.(UNI)