Guest drive in Subaru WRC

Derek McGarrity has tipped Guy Wilks to cause a big upset on Rally Ireland. McGarrity's DMG team is running the British young gun in a Subaru Impreza S11 - alongside Wilks' former JWRC rival Kris Meeke in an S12B.

And double Irish tarmac champ McGarrity said: "We've got the right men for the job - and they are both running on Pirelli tyres which may work out to be our trump card."

Wilks has scored three successive top 10 WRC finishes this year in Greece, Finland and Germany in The Sun Mobil Ford Focus. He has also scored three wins for Mitsubishi UK in the British Championship.

McGarrity said: "I'm a big admirer of Guy's talents. He has a tremendous amount of raw speed. You only have to look at Guy's results this year on the WRC. In Finland, which is a very specialist rally, he was knocking on the doors of the top seven.

"I genuinely feel we have the two drivers that can be the top privateer cars. Guy and Kris both have the potential and talent to make it in the WRC, but they need the resources to do it. Money talks right now. A lot of foreign drivers seems to have a lot of budget behind them, whereas our guys don't.

"But either of those guys can get a top five result, it has to open doors for them."