Manxman Mark Higgins has won Rally Isle of Man for a record fifth time – and in the most dramatic fashion!

Higgins and co-driver Bryan Thomas eventually finished one minute 26.4 seconds ahead of young Irish duo Keith Cronin and Greg Shinnors.

However, for so long it seemed clutch problems would end the hopes of a local victory.

In the end, despite predicting they would need a minimum of 25 minutes, Higgins’ crew took just one minute more than the allotted 20 minute time window to take out the gearbox, change the clutch and put gearbox back again.

Although that meant Higgins and Thomas were handed a ten second time penalty, allowing Cronin to return to the top of the leaderboard by 5.4 seconds, Higgins remained in touch and was able to regain the lead before going onto record a comprehensive victory – much to his delight.

Tim Glover described the action.

Alistair Fisher and Rory Kennedy were on the podium in third; an emotional Steven Quine and Paul McCann earned a local fourth spot.

And there was another local duo in the top 10 with Andrew Leece and Richard Skinner finishing in a fine 10th place.

Ramsey's David Harrison and co-driver Glyn Thomas finished a very impressive 13th after winning last year's Challenge support event.

Kris Killip, co-driver for Harry Hunt, was 15th; Rob Callin and Chris Reynolds 19th; Richard Kneen and Eric Pritchard were 24th with Nigel and Michaela Cannell in 25th place.