Tauranga's Phil Campbell has come away from the fourth round of the New Zealand Rally Championship with his best result of the season to date with only a puncture costing him second place for the weekend.

Phil Campbell racing in Whangarei. Photo: Euan Cameron.

Phil, along with co-driver Venita Fabbro, started the Whangarei based event in the recently rebuilt and re-painted Ford Fiesta ST with high confidence and comfortably set the second fastest time on the opening stage, before settling into a battle with Josh Marston in a similar car.

By the time crews entered service after the first loop of four stages, Phil was third in the NZRC two-wheel drive class, but only 0.3 of a second off second place.

The 24-year old was set to mount an attack to claim the second spot across the afternoon, but a puncture 15km into the 40km stage six put paid to any chance of moving up the leader board. After playing safe for the remaining two stages, Phil claimed third place for the first leg.

Day two saw Phil again make a strong start, claiming second place on three of the four stages that made up the morning loop of stages to hold second place and a comfortable 21 seconds ahead of third place.

Another strong run through the afternoon saw Phil claim second for the day and recover to within 35 seconds of Marston for the two-day rally despite the day one puncture.

'We had a good run, it was nice to finally have a clean run for the first time this year,” says Phil.

'Ben (class winner Ben Hunt) was flying, but at the final round in Hawke's Bay, we want to be giving him a hurry up.”