A JAMMED gearlever cost Daniel Barritt and David Higgins their first British Championship victory of the year.

The Mitsubishi men were set to claim maximum points on the Pirelli International Rally when their factory-backed Evo8 became stuck in fourth gear.

Their comfortable 47-second lead over Finnish rival Tapio Laukkanen quickly evaporated into a 57-second deficit, costing them any chance of a deserved win in the production car class.

However with team-mates Rory Galligan and Greg Shinnors -- in an identical car -- forced to retire from the event with the same problem, it was a relieved Higgins and his Hapton-based co-driver who made it onto the finish ramp in seventh place overall.

"I don't think I have ever enjoyed finishing second so much!," Higgins said.

"I was obviously disappointed not to win the class, but until we had problems the car was great.

"Having Tapio to battle with was real incentive and I was pleased that we were consistently quicker.

"I hoped that by setting faster times in the closing stages he might have made a mistake, and if I was not so determined to finish I think I could have caught him."

After such an excellent showing in round one, the Rally of Wales, where the Mitsubishi team dominated the Production Class and Galligan claimed Group N honours first time out, hopes were high for another top result in round two.

However, there were two factors which were to keep the team on their toes last weekend. One was the appearance of Finnish ace Tapio Laukkanen in a Group N Subaru and the other was the fitting of the new competition gearboxes to the team's two Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8's.

Fears of the challenge from Laukkanen appeared unfounded as both Mitsubishi drivers set faster times in the first two stages, with Higgins leading the class and Galligan second.

But Galligan's rally took a turn for the worse on the first of the event's forest stages, when halfway through SS3 he found he could not get out of fourth gear.

Higgins, on the other hand, was flying and extended his lead in the Production Car Class, his pace such that he ended Friday's seven stages 47 seconds ahead of Laukkanen and in a respectable 4th place overall.

With his Mitsubishi running perfectly, Higgins embarked on Saturday's 11 stages intending more of the same.

Then, on SS11 he too suffered the same problem as Galligan, but the reigning British Champion knew that if he could get the car through the 12th stage, another run through P-Zero, he could make it to the next service halt.

The ADR mechanics incredibly changed the Mitsubishi's gearbox in a record-breaking 25 minutes. Having to accept a 50-second penalty for going over the service time allowed, Higgins re-joined the rally 57 seconds behind Laukkanen.

Higgins crossed the line back in Carlisle on Saturday afternoon having reduced the margin between him and Laukkanen to 40 seconds, a performance which netted second in the Production Category and seventh overall.

On inspection it was found that everything in the recently developed transmission was operating perfectly, the jamming in fourth gear traced to the mating of the standard gear linkage to the new gearbox.