"A couple of times I found myself going a bit slow and the driving didn't flow - we had to speed up to make it work properly.
"We've had our focus purely on the championship the whole year and to achieve the goal you've set is really fantastic - we're over the moon about it. BNT have been very supportive and it's great to reward their years of support with a championship victory.
"Everybody else had their own problems and we just had to keep it sensible the whole rally. It proved to be the right way to go about it."
Gilmour, the only driver with any chance of eclipsing Mason heading into the Rally of Hawkes Bay, needed the Masterton driver to fail to finish to sneak the title.
It wasn't to be, but she did win the final stage on Sunday.
It was a bit of a fillip as fuel pump problems caused her to slip to third earlier in the day, but a war of attrition among her competitors allowed her to climb back into second.
"It was a bit of a frustrating weekend, really," says Gilmour.
"The car gave us grief from the third stage onward but we ended up with a very good result considering how bad it was looking this morning when the car wouldn't start.
"While we had a mathematical chance of winning the championship we always knew having a good clean run and winning the rally could have turned it into reality."
Ben Hunt reversed the overnight advantage in the 2WD class held by Marcus van Klink.
He brought his Ford Fiesta ST home to secure both the 2WD championship and junior rally championship titles.
"We wanted to come here to finish and win the 2WD and junior championship but in the back of our minds we wanted to win the event 2WD honours as well," says Hunt.
"We wanted to finish on a high and that's what we've done - it's fantastic."
Despite finishing in 29th overall, it was enough for Rob Wylie to win his second title in the historic class.
Geof Argyle took out the open-class 4WD title and Neil Marshall won the rookie honours.
Kiwis fight for position
Across the ditch the Kiwis didn't have the best of days in the latest round of the V8 Supercars in Queensland for the Coates Hire Ipswich 300.
Stone Brothers Racing driver Shane van Gisbergen managed to qualify only 16th on Saturday. Again the talented New Zealander had to fight his way through the field to finish 11th and eighth in the two races. Sunday proved a better race day, with van Gisbergen finishing on the podium in third and teammate Tim Slade in second.
With his strong finish on Sunday, the two-time 2011 race winner retained third place in the series standings and heads into the endurance rounds in September, the L&H 500 at Phillip Island, and October, the Bathurst 1000, in a good position.
"Tim has set a benchmark this weekend and I have to get myself back up to speed," says van Gisbergen. "We weren't really there all weekend but we did make some changes to make the car faster but it [the car] probably didn't really suit my style.
"I'll sit down with Paul [engineer] this week and make sure we're back in shape for the enduros. It's been a while since we've had a good run at the enduros so hopefully this year it's our turn."
As for the two drivers in front of van Gisbergen on the points table, TeamVodafone teammates Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes, it was a weekend to forget for series leader Whincup and one to savour for Lowndes.
Whincup finished the weekend with a second, a third and an unfamiliar 10th in race three. Lowndes, on the other hand, had a blinder, winning all three races.
His clean sweep makes it 80 race victories, just nine shy of Mark Skaife's all-time record, and he is now just 98 points off the championship lead held by Whincup with van Gisbergen in third.
Silverstone tough to crack
At Silverstone, Brendon Hartley was trying to make inroads on the leaders in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series.
It wasn't to be as the best he could manage was 10th place in race two and nothing in race one.
Hartley's troubles started when a wheel bearing problem caused him to lose track time in practice and unable to post a qualifying time as well as starting from the rear of the field.
Finishing last and three laps down did not bode well for race two. Qualifying seventh for race two and going on to finish in seventh salvaged something from the weekend.
Hartley is now seventh on the points table with two rounds to go.
