A maiden win and a broken wheel: The two sides to this year's Rally of Canberra

Canberra rally driver Harry Bates is preparing to head over to Western Australia in May … and put the pedal to the metal to make up for last weekend’s hair-raising crash.

“We’ve got a bit of a points deficit to make up now, so we need to start working on that,” he told Region this week.

His Toyota GR Yaris was among more than 40 cars that took over the fire trails in the Cotter Reserve and Kowen Forest on 22 and 23 March for the 2025 Rally of Canberra – the starting round of this year’s Australian Rally Championship (ARC) season.

Not only is it home turf for Harry and his brother Lewis as born-and-bred locals, but they also drive for Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia – the name sponsor of this year’s rally.

But when the flag finally dropped on Sunday afternoon, it had been quite an eventful two days for both of them.

Harry has built up an impressive CV in the Rally of Canberra, beating Lewis by a nail-biting 1.8 seconds in the last stage of 2023 and then finishing first alongside his co-driver Coral Taylor in 2024. A win in 2025 would have been Harry’s seventh championship title.

But his car had other ideas.

The GR Yaris Rally2 is designed from the ground up for this sort of action, but a mishap in one of the corners on Saturday morning left Harry and co-driver Coral without a wheel.

“It was in the famous Tidbinbilla area, which is really the most technical stage of the rally, and we made a mistake, put the right rear wheel in a bit of a ditch and there must have been something in there – a rock or concrete culvert – which tore the wheel off,” he says.

It meant the pair missed two of the subsequent stages, but they managed to get the car repaired in time to return at lunch time on Saturday. They ended up clawing back enough points to finish the rally in third place.

“Because I got 10 points for day one and then 50 points for day two, that was enough to be on the podium outright for the event … A challenging weekend … but happy to be on the podium which we didn’t expect after our issues.”

Harry’s was far from the weekend’s only accident either.

Melbourne’s Scott Pedder and co-driver Glen Macneall suffered a puncture in their Skoda Fabia, while New Zealand’s Hayden Paddon and co-driver John Kennard withdrew after they hit a kangaroo in their Hyundai i20 in the opening stage.

Lewis also hit a kangaroo on Sunday morning, but “got lucky” and – alongside co-driver Anthony McLoughlin – managed to carry the Toyota name to his first rally victory ever.

“Canberra’s always a very tough rally, especially this year where conditions were extremely rough and demanding on the crews and cars,” Lewis said.

“I’m super excited to get the win – my first win in Canberra. I’ve been trying to win this event for about seven years now and to do it in front of family and friends is a very good feeling.

“Obviously others had their misfortunes. It was very unlucky for Hayden and John, we were looking forward to a good battle with them. But fortunately for us, luck was on our side and I am over the moon.

“We came with a game plan and we executed it really well.”

Neal Bates, Harry and Lewis’s father, said he was “obviously very happy with the way the weekend turned out”.

“I was so happy for Lewis. For seven years, he’s been doing this event and finally won his home round. I know what it feels like and it’s very, very special to do it in front of everyone.”

He said Harry’s third place overall was notable because “after yesterday morning, you couldn’t ask for any better than that”.

Rally of Canberra clerk of the course Adrian Dudok described this year’s rally as “the best attended event for many years”.

The second race of the 2025 ARC season takes place in Perth from 23 to 25 May.