Bryn Jones and co-driver Max Freeman have finished sixth in the Peugeot Rally Cup and 19th overall at Rali da Água, matching Jones’ result from his 2025 European debut at the event.
Returning to Chaves for the second consecutive year, Jones and Freeman faced a challenging weekend as the Portuguese event was affected by stages heavily polluted with gravel and a significantly revised route.
Repeated stage passes and large cuts by the front-running crews dragged considerable amounts of gravel onto the road, making conditions increasingly slippery and unpredictable.
To add to the challenge, issues surrounding road closures in Spain forced organisers, CAMI Motorsport, to completely reconfigure the event route, with three passes of the stages ultimately taking place on the Portuguese side of the event.
Despite the difficult circumstances, Jones and Freeman made a strong start to the weekend in their Peugeot 208 Rally4, immediately finding a good rhythm on Friday’s stages.
“Friday’s stages felt really good for us,” said Jones.
“Max and I were on it from the get-go and everything seemed to be flowing really well. We were getting comfortable in the car and building our speed.”
Saturday saw the pair continue to build their pace, with Jones progressively finding more speed as the day went on.
“We had a good sleep, reset and were ready for a big push. We continued building on our speed and were getting progressively better throughout the day.”
The only major setback came on the penultimate stage when Jones spun on a particularly slippery section of gravel, costing the pair several seconds. They responded by finishing the rally with a strong final stage.
“Unfortunately, we had a spin on the second-to-last stage on some gravel, which cost us a few seconds. But we finished with one last push in the final stage which was a bit of fun.”
The result saw Jones and Freeman finish 19th overall and sixth in the Peugeot Rally Cup, exactly matching Jones’ result from his first international event at Rali da Água in 2025.
Freeman was pleased with the progress made throughout the weekend and Jones’ ability to extract more performance from the Peugeot despite the difficult conditions.
“A great drive from Bryn, continuously making improvements and getting the most out of the car on some very tricky, polluted stages,” said Freeman.
“Massive well done to the organisers for running the event across two countries. Looking forward to the next round.”
Attention now turns to Rallye Casinos do Algarve on 2–3 October, where Jones and Freeman will return to gravel and tackle some of the region’s famous roads, many of which have featured in the World Rally Championship.
Header Image: Kora
