EIGHTEEN-year-old Fraser Anderson is set to make his maiden senior rally start in Scotland when he contests the Grampian Rally this weekend.

The Helensburgh-based teenager is making final preparations for the first Scottish event in the BRC Academy Trophy’s 2021 calendar at the wheel of his Baxter and Gillespie-backed Ford Fiesta R2T – although any home advantage is limited to the fact that he once went to spectate on the event, and his rivals from Scotland, England and Ireland have more experience of the fast Aberdeenshire forest stages than he has.

Preparation will be key, as Anderson once again studies all the relevant onboard camera footage he can find after similar detailed pre-event revision worked well for him and co-driver Jack Bowen on the previous round of the British Rally Championship, the Nicky Grist Stages.

"Scotland is notorious for having fast stages,” he said, “and even after the first look at the Grampian Rally onboard footage I can safely say that I’ve never done such high-speed stages before.

“It’s all really fast and flowing and I’m really looking forward to starting the event.

“Preparation will be key. I’ll go through the videos with Jack [Bowen], my co-driver, I’ll memorise where all the really bad places are, and then on the recce it will just be a case of double checking everything and making the most accurate pace notes that we can. It’s what we did last time out on the Nicky Grist Stages and it worked out very well for us.”

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Anderson set the fastest BRC Academy Trophy time in seven of the eight stages on that event in the mid-Wales forests to come out tied for the lead of the category with arch rival Johnnie Mulholland.

“I was pleased with our performance last time out,” he said. “The set up on the Fiesta was slightly off in the morning – the rear was a little stiff and the back of the car was breaking away and sliding around too much.

“The team made some changes at the mid-day service halt and it was much better in the afternoon, so overall we were pretty pleased to come away with a good result and the BRC Academy Trophy win.

“I feel that I’m faster than Johnnie [Mulholland] on gravel, so we have to make the most of our opportunities on the Grampian and other loose surface rallies before we get to the asphalt rounds, where I have little or no experience.

“With that in mind, there is only one target next and that is to win the Grampian Rally. We haven’t got much of a home advantage as I’ve only ever been to watch the event once, but I want to score a good result on this, my first senior rally in Scotland.”

A capacity 120 car field will start out from Banchory on Saturday morning before covering six ultra-fast stages in the Fetteresso and Drumtochty forest complexes.