Antoine L'Estage and co-driver Nathalie Richard have claimed their third consecutive New England Forest Rally victory leading the two-day event in Maine from start to finish.

The Rockstar Mitsubishi crew gained an early advantage from their road position on Friday's dusty stages winning all four tests as a result and opening up an overnight gap of 32 seconds over championship rivals David Higgins and co-driver Craig Drew. In addition, L'Estage set the new record for the 5.38-mile Concord Pond stage besting Ken Block's 2009 time by 9.9 seconds.

L'Estage managed his lead through Saturday's seven remaining stages keeping enough distance between himself and Higgins to collect his second American rally win in a row for the season. He is now poised to finish second in the overall championship standings at the Olympus Rally following CrazyLeo Urlichich's retirement from NEFR this morning due to a crash.

Higgins finished NEFR second overall 21 seconds adrift of L'Estage allowing him and co-driver Drew to mathematically clinch their second consecutive American title with Subaru Rally Team USA.

Canada's Ugo Desgreniers and co-driver Erik Kirby finished third provisionally.