THORNBURY rally star Adam Gould has won the 2007 Fiesta Sporting Trophy International Shoot-Out, beating 22 of the best Fiesta Sporting Trophy competitors from around the world.

The incredible prize for winning the shoot-out is a year's contract with the BP Ford World Rally Team, who have recently just clinched their second consecutive Manufacturers' World Rally Championship title.

The British Rally Academy driver will be working full-time at M-Sport, with his roles including working with weather crews on events, helping to write pacenotes, working with mechanics in the factory, training with the WRC drivers, and even testing the World Rally cars!

Of course, the real benefit of winning this opportunity is for Gould to spend a year impressing M-Sport with his abilities and determination, and for them to become familiar with him as a potential world rally driver.

This superb achievement is even more satisfying for Gould considering he was close to not even being selected to attend the shoot-out.

His dreadful luck throughout the season has prevented him from scoring as highly as his ability would suggest.

Fortunately, however, the selectors were able to see through this, and identify his class-beating pace.

Gould and the rest of the competitors, some of whom had travelled from as far as New Zealand, were put through their paces over two days at the M-Sport base in Cumbria. The first day consisted of gruelling fitness tests, media interviews with a panel of international journalists, and a written psychology test. Gould performed superbly in all three tests, and even won the bleep test' outright.

The next day would see the competitors take to the stages for the timed runs. Each driver got three runs through the Greystoke stage, and the judges, including M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson and Business Development Manager Andrew Wheatley, were looking for pace, consistency and improvement.

Gould shone in all three areas by knocking seven seconds off his first time by his third run. Gould was one of the quickest through the stage, and impressed the judges.

The scores from the first four tests were added together, and the top five scorers were put into the final round - a one-to-one interview with Malcolm Wilson. Gould was one of the selected five, and was confident that he could impress in the interview.

Impress he certainly did, as he was chosen ahead of the rest of the field as the winner of the Fiesta Sporting Trophy Shoot-out 2007.

Gould's rallying career certainly seems to be gathering pace, and with this and winning the Autosport young driver feature recently, Gould is impressing all the right people.

Gould commented: "Both days were a massive challenge but I was determined to do everything I could to win this prize, as it is a great platform to progress forward in rallying. Next year is going to be a great experience and I'm really looking forward to spending the year at M-Sport and with the BP-Ford team."