Craig Breen began his second season as a Peugeot Rally Academy driver at round two of the European Rally Championship ERC Rally Liep?ja in Latvia and took his first podium of the year.

Craig and his new co-driver Scott Martin had a great start to their first event together by qualifying their Peugeot 207 S2000 in 2nd only 1.06 seconds behind German driver Sepp Wiegand on Friday afternoon.

This gave Craig second choice of road position for Leg 1 at the start selection ceremony later that day and he chose to run 14th on the road.

That turned out to be the right decision by Craig as the crews in front including Wiegand who had chosen to run 7th ended up clearing a fresh overnight snowfall from the path of those running behind.

It was French man Bryan Bouffier that was fastest on the opening stage closely followed by Russian driver Vasily Gryazin.

Craig only managed  fifth fastest on the  stage but it was evident from his stage end interview that the Peugeot Rally Academy driver was finding it difficult to determine just how much grip there was on the snow covered gravel roads.

Bouffier’s rally came an end on stage 2 and from there on it was Finnish driver Essapekka Lappi, Gryazin and Breen that set the pace.

As the day went on Craig’s confidence grew and he consistently posted top three times and ended the day in 3rd.

The Peugeot Rally Academy driver woke up celebrating his 24th Birthday on Sunday morning and with another six stages to contest it was straight to work.

His charge was halted by the fact he found the now mostly gravel stages were just ripping the studs from his tyres, he even recalled a near miss clipping the right rear wheel off something on the second stage of the day but luckily escaping a puncture.

Craig made it safely through the remaining stages to take 3rd overall and his first podium of the season.

Lappi continued to dominate and eventually took  1st, while Gryazin survived gearbox trouble to finish 2nd.

Craig admits he could never get into a groove in what was his final rally in the Peugeot 207 S2000 but he was delighted to at least begin the year with a podium finish.