Karting Champion joins record Rally2 field

Former Caribbean Junior Karting Champion Adam Mallalieu this weekend becomes the youngest driver to compete in the 2024 Barbados Rally2 Championship sponsored by CIBC Caribbean. Added to a number of returning drivers, his participation in Sunday’s (April 28) Barbados Rally Club (BRC) Shakedown Stages brings to 12 the entries in the FIA R5 class, a record number outside Rally Barbados.
  Among the returnees are Stuart Maloney and Jamaica’s Jeff Panton, who won the first two seasons of the Barbados Motoring Federation’s (BMF) first national motor sport championship, each driving a Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo. This year’s opening round last month was won by Jamaica’s Kyle Gregg (Ford Fiesta Rally2) after an intense battle with Rob Swann from the UK rallying his Fabia Rally2 evo for the first time, the outcome decided on the last of the day’s special stages.
  At 20 years of age, Mallalieu will drive a Fiesta R5 guided by experienced British co-driver Steve McNulty, who has been a regular competitor in the island for the past 10 years. Elder son of BMF President Andrew Mallalieu, the former Harrison College student has been at college abroad in recent years, so has limited experience in a rally car since his karting successes. He shared his father’s Fiesta R5 in three Sprint events in 2021, then drove his own ex-Paul Horton example in the Barbados Motoring Club Inc (MCBI) Full Throttle Double-Header last July, finishing seventh and third overall, second in the FIA R5 class to Gregg in the reverse direction.
  He first raced in the Barbados Karting Association’s (BKA) Easykart 60cc Cadet class in 2015 before graduating to Easykart 100cc Juniors the following year, finishing the season fifth. He won nearly every race on his way to clinching the title in 2017, then doubled up on his championship wins in Easykart 125cc Lights the following year.
  In 2018, he was the first driver from the Caribbean to race in the CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy, the first rung on the ladder of the FIA single-seater path to Formula 1, against 75 other rising stars from across 40 of the FIA’s member countries. When the identical karts used in Europe were acquired by the BMF to create a similar competition in the region, supported by the FIA’s Sport Grant Programme, Mallalieu was the first winner of the Caribbean Junior Karting Academy Trophy in 2019, beating young karters from Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica and winning 10 of the 24 races.
  McNulty is one of the UK’s most accomplished national co-drivers, contesting upwards of 20 events a year, sometimes two in one weekend. He won last year’s Rixey Stages with Barbados regular Rob Swann in his Ford Fiesta WRC and has claimed six wins and a further eight podium finishes in a Fiesta Rally2 with Darrell Taylor since 2021, most recently in the Lookout Stages earlier this month.
  On his first visit to Rally Barbados in 2014, he won Modified 6 in a Nissan Micra with Dick Mauger, his most regular driver for 14 years; since then, McNulty has four more overall finishes to his credit and another class win, in Group B, in Robin Hamilton’s MG Metro 6R4 in RB18. After finishing second in King of the Hill, his hopes of a achieving his best result in the island to date were dashed when the engine of Swann’s Subaru Impreza WRC S12B expired on the Friday night of RB19.
  The Shakedown Stages is scheduled to start at 10.30am on Sunday, with Scrutineering from 8.00am in the Service Park at Haymans Plantation, St Peter. There will be nine runs through two venues in the north of the island which are popular with spectators and drivers alike: the stage between Luke Hill and Lamberts in St Lucy will run in both directions, alternating with French Village to Four Hills, with the event slated to finish by around 5.30pm.

Barbados Rally2 Championship
sponsored by CIBC Caribbean
Round 2 – BRC Shakdedown Stages (Barbados Rally Club)
St Lucy & St Peter – April 28

Provisional R5/Rally2 entry list at April 25
Kyle Gregg – JAM/Orry Hunte (Ford Fiesta Rally2)
Roger Hill/Graham Gittens (Skoda Fabia R5)
Paul Horton - TCI/Matt Edwards - WAL (Citroen C3 Rally2)
Adam Mallalieu/Steve McNulty - ENG (Ford Fiesta R5)
Andrew Mallalieu/Geoff Goddard (Ford Fiesta R5)
Mark Maloney/Justin Maloney (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo)
Stuart Maloney/Kristian Yearwood (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo)
Jeffrey Panton – JAM/Michael Fennell Jnr – JAM (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo)
Josh Read/Mark Jordan (Ford Fiesta R5)
George Sherman - USA/Scott Pinheiro – T&T (Ford Fiesta Rally2)
Rob Swann – ENG/Dylan Thomas - WAL (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo)
Logan Watson/Kreigg Yearwood (Skoda Fabia Rally2 evo)

Championship points after round 1
1st Gregg – JAM, 20 points; 2nd Swann – ENG, 17pts; 3rd Read, 15pts; 4th Hill, 13pts; 5th Watson, 11pts; 6th Andrew Mallalieu, 9pts

Remaining rounds: Rd 2, Apr 28 - Shakedown Stages (BRC); Rd 3, May 26 – First Citizens King of the Hill (BRC); Rds 4 & 5, May 31–Jun 2 – BCIC Rally Barbados 2024 (BRC); Rd 6, Sep 14 – Rally of the Sun & Stars (MCBI); Rd 7, Nov 17 – Winter Rally (BRC); Rds 8 & 9, Nov 30/Dec 1 – Special Stage Rally (VRMSC)
Key to organisers: BRC – Barbados Rally Club; MCBI – Motoring Club Barbados Inc; VRMSC – Vaucluse Raceway Motorsports Club
For media information only. No regulatory value.

For further information:
please contact BMF Vice-President, David Williams - e-mail: vicepresident@bmf-fia.com
web site: https://bmf-fia.com/