David Maguire confirmed as Fiesta ST Champion
Following a Motorsport Ireland tribunal arising from penalties applied at round nine of the ‘The Trailer Company’ Fiesta ST Championship, David Maguire has been confirmed as the 2018 champion. The tribunal resulted in the reversal of a four point penalty applied to Maguire, thereby making him the ST champion for the third year in a row.
At the end of the final round of the series, at Mondello Park in September, Maguire was declared as the champion. A subsequent review of the effect that his round nine penalty would have on the calculation of dropped scores threw the results into doubt and delayed the confirmation of the final championship result until now.
Under the revised scoring calculation, if Maguires’ penalty had remained, the final points would have placed him level at the top with Michael Cullen. Cullen’s greater number of wins would then have made him champion, but with the tribunal pending, no announcement could be made until Motorsport Ireland completed their deliberations.
With the judicial process now complete and Maguire’s four points re-instated, he can finally celebrate his continued dominance of the Fiesta ST class as he remains the only driver to have won the series since its introduction in 2016.
The way the season ended shows just how closely contested the 2018 championship was, with the top two almost inseparable throughout. Maguire and Cullen dominated the podium all year, with one or other of them either first or second in all but two of the races and a total of seven wins between them.
The decision of the Motorsport Ireland tribunal only effects the top two positions, with ‘The Trailer Company’ backed Darragh McMullen, remaining third.
