The 2007 FIA Production car World Rally Championship (PWRC) entered its closing stage in mid-November. The seventh round was held in Ireland which hosted a WRC event for the first time.
　
After the ceremonial start at Belfast, Northern Ireland, and one short SS (Special Stage) on 15th November, all competitors traveled some 200km away to Sligo where the service park was set up. The full-size competition started on Friday, 16th November.
　
Although the rally was a tarmac event, it was rainy and wet surfaces turned to be more difficult as they were covered with mud here and there. In this rally, two cars were ADVAN equipped; Leszek Kuzaj's SUBARU Impreza that finished the previous round (Rally Japan) in second and Fumio Nutahara's ADVAN-PIAA Lancer. Nutahara had come to Ireland immediately after he finished second in the Japanese Rally Championship event the previous weekend.
　
Both cars started with ADVAN A006T tires but their performances in the early phase were quite a contrast. Kuzaj was going well and marked the second fastest time in the SS3 as he had spent enough time for the preparation test and devised a good setup. On the other hand, Nutahara's car was far from perfect conditions because of the restricted preparation time and he also had to endure a difficult rally while registering only moderate stage times.
　
However, Kuzaj had an unfortunate accident. Soon after the start of the SS6 (27.90km), he spun on the slippery surface when he hit the brakes, resulting in heavy damage to his car.
　
On the second day, 17th November, it was raining hard and there was a dense fog, which made the rally tougher for the competitors. Nutahara skillfully controlled his car that had been given the best possible setup change overnight and moved up to eighth, one place higher than his finishing position of Leg 1. Meanwhile, Kuzaj was able to restart by the application of SupeRally rules after hard work by his mechanics but he had to give up the rally in the SS13 due to suspension trouble.
　
Now Nutahara was the only surviving ADVAN user. Leg 3 on the final day consisted of four special stages but the weather was still inconsistent and the surfaces were wet throughout. Some of top ranked drivers retired in the closing stage of the rally, which showed how challenging this rally was. However, Nutahara continued a steady drive until the finish.
　
Since he will be absent from the final round, Rally GB, this was his last event of the season. Eventually, Nutahara finished in sixth despite such difficult surface conditions and very tough circumstances for him in terms of preparations.

"The new addition to the WRC calendar, Rally Ireland, was a much more difficult rally than we anticipated from information collected beforehand. The roads were narrow and bumpy but the average speed was relatively high. And a considerable amount of mud was spread out over the wet surfaces.
"Even though it was a tarmac rally, when the car came back from the special stages, the wheel rims were muddy as if the car ran over a gravel road.
"As expected, local drivers were fast at the end of the day. I felt that this was the most difficult rally of the year and much experience would be needed to win.
"Both Nutahara and Kuzaj used ADVAN A006T tires and the compound was super soft for wet surfaces. Despite challenging conditions, the drivers reported no problems with those tires. We felt that the potential of the tires was high, as proved by the stage times of Kuzaj who was in the leading echelon in the early phase".