Teamed with Stuart Maloney in the Subaru Impreza WRC, which took him all the way to the top of the Championship last year, they finished the day with a total elapsed time of 27 minutes 2.586 secs.

Their job was made a little easier, as loose surface specialist Trevor Electric Micey Manning, with Kreigg Yearwood sitting in the co-drivers seat, had turbo problems after Stage three in the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII.

Manning and Yearwood were still good enough to finish second on the day, with a time of 27 minutes 41.625 secs. Kirk Watkins and Rhett Watson finished third overall, while the Mark Hamilton and Megan Blades team was the fastest two-wheel-drive, finishing fourth overall.

Jonathan Still and Heath Hazell rounded off the top five finishers.

Eight stages were used over two venues, Yorkshire and Searles.

Speaking after the event, Bourne said that the rally was exciting and there were nice stages.

However, things on Sunday were made even harder for the drivers when the rain came.

We had some rain that made things really tricky, said Bourne as he made reference to Stage Three, which he described as so slippery.

However, Bourne and Maloney were not in the lead after the first two stages of the rally, but it was the team of Manning and Yearwood.

In the first two stages Micey beat me by six seconds on each one, but I was driving conservatively, mentioned the eventual winner.

I decided to just go easy and... Micey beat me on the first stages. We had been told that it was only by two seconds and I had messed up the start and lost about two seconds there, so when I went into the second stage I didnt really change my programme too much, as I knew where the two seconds were and it went the same way. But then he beat me by six seconds.

This gave me a wake-up call& then the rain came down. As we went into stage three it was so slippery and it was basically who managed to keep on the road the longest& who ran off the least amount of times would have the fastest time.

I beat him by 22 seconds, as I only went off twice, while he (Manning) went off about four times.

So in four and five I beat him by about five seconds, but by then I gathered that he had a problem.

By the lunch break I had about 20 seconds on him.

After Bourne realised that Manning had a number of problems he said that he did not press and only drove at nine tenth and kept it together.

We had absolutely no problems for the entire day and the car worked nicely from start to finish.

Overall finishers

1 Paul Bourne/Stuart Maloney (Subaru Impreza WRC) M8 WRC  27:02.58

2 Trevor Manning/Kreigg Yearwood (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII) M8 WRC  27:41.62

3 Kirk Watkins/Rhett Watson (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V) M8-A  29:56.74

4 Mark Hamilton/Megan Blades (Ford Escort MkII) SM11  30.38.77

5 Jonathan Still/Heath Hazell (BMW M3) SM11  30:47.82

6 Freddie Gale/Kyle Proverbs (Toyota Corolla RunX) M7  31:10.11

7 Josh Read/Mark Jordan (Toyota Starlet) SM9  31:44.55

8 Neil Barnard/Kevin Massiah (Suzuki Ignis Sport) P2  31:38.33

9 Stuart White/Brendon McKenzie (Toyota Corolla KP30) SM9  33:24.95

10 Allan Kinch/Allan Maynard (Daihatsu Charmant) M6  34:03.52

11 Calvin Briggs/H. Brathwaite (Ford Escort MkII) SM11  34:59.26

12 Josh Delmas/Lisa Roett (Toyota Corolla GTi) M6  38:41.102

13 Ian Warren/Barry Hill (Peugeot 206) M6  38:48.32