THREE factory rally teams have chosen oil from a Birkenhead based company for their respective attacks on the Mobil 1 RAC British Rally Championship.

This was confirmed during the opening event, the Wirral based RAC Rally of Wales, which started and finished in Bromborough.

Crews from Ford, Honda and Nissan will use Mobil 1-claimed to be the World's advanced engine oil throughout the tough five rounds championship.

It promises to be one of the most competitive British Rally championships for years. Sisters Stephanie and Rachael Simmonite line up in Ford's corner this season as they bid for a third consecutive Women's Rally Championship. The Yorkshire siblings used a press conference for the Rally of Wales, at Albert Dock, to reveal their new deal. They also took the opportunity to read the tv weather forecast for the New Brighton stage of the rally.

Richard Asquith's Honda team has also struck an alliance with Mobil, which will see the continuation of the agreement between the two organisations. Preston's Neil Wearden drives the team's lead Civic.

Nissan is the latest manufacturer to switch to Mobil 1. They will field a single Sunny for Manxman Mark Higgins, who will no doubt be hoping to repeat the kind of form which saw him claim fourth place overall on last season's Network Q RAC Rally which, unfortunately, wont be based at Chester this Autumn.

Mobil 1 is a synthetic oil available at BP stations following their joint venture. Mobil has a plant in the North End of Birkenhead.

Motor racing starts at Oulton Park in Cheshire this Good Friday with F3000, Porsche Cup, Mini 7 and Championship of Oulton. The Touring Cars race there on May 25 and 26

D.C. Cook Motorsport has announced that Guy Front (pictured) is there front runner for British Formula 3.

Meanwhile, Zak Brown - who was based in Birkenhead and America - has made his debut in the Rolex 24 Hour Race at Daytona Speedway, USA. Driving a black Factory Porsche. As part of a team, the foursome helped Porsche get a class win.

Now Zak is getting ready for the Grand Prix Atlanta on April 20 while he plans to round of the season in October at Sebring.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.