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The 34-year-old wasn’t left feeling too deflated, however, as his fifth place at the Llandudno-based Cambrian Rally was enough to secure a fourth top-five finish on the championship’s leaderboard on the bounce despite a mishap-hit end to the six-round season. Despite two punctures in his last three outings, the other being at August’s Grampian Forest Rally in Aberdeenshire, and a crash-enforced retiral in between at September’s Rali Ceredigion at Aberystwyth, four-time Scottish champion Pearson racked up a third fifth-placed finish this time round on 44 points. That follows placing fifth last year on 60, second in 2023 on 123 points and fifth in his 2022 debut season on 52. Pearson, representing Cumbria’s M-Sport, was hit by his latest puncture on the first stage of Saturday’s rally, leaving him trailing the race’s frontrunners by over a minute and forcing him to err on the side of caution thereafter due to not having a spare tyre in the boot of his Ford Fiesta Rally2. With the rally totalling just 43 miles, Pearson and Melrose-based co-driver Hannah McKillop accepted that they wouldn’t be able to vie for a podium placing after that misfortune and instead focused on notching up the best stage times they could manage during the afternoon’s racing, including finishing the day’s final stage third-quickest. Fellow Scot Max McRae won Saturday’s rally in his Skoda Fabia Rally2, with Estonia’s Romet Jurgenson second and Welsh driver Meirion Evans third. Fourth place was enough to secure this year’s title for Northern Ireland’s William Creighton, with Evans as runner-up and Jurgenson third overall. “In many ways, I think the Cambrian Rally told the story of our season,” said Pearson afterwards. “Hannah and I can be extremely encouraged by our improvement in pace this year but misfortune has cost us some good results, which was certainly the case at the weekend. “We don’t do this to finish fifth, but sometimes that’s the way things go in this sport, and it only serves to make success taste sweeter. “Unfortunately, we lost a stage at the Cambrian but the organisers and the volunteers put on an amazing weekend in really challenging conditions at times. “Massive congratulations too to fellow Wera Alliance Racing Academy driver Max McRae on his victory. “With the season now over, it won’t be long until our thoughts turn to 2026. “I think our improvements this year have been noticed by many – we are now a regular podium threat in the British championship and are regularly winning events outside the championship – so we absolutely intend to come back stronger and build on that progress next year. “Thanks to all of my partners, supporters and the M-Sport team for their help, guidance, support and effort to get us onto the stages and make this such an enjoyable year.”
