By 
JON Armstrong enjoyed a remarkable but ultimately frustrating World Rally Championship debut at Rallye Monte Carlo.
The prestigious WRC curtain-raiser was played out in treacherous conditions as snow and ice coated the already difficult stages and when the temperatures started to rise, the difficulty level only increased as crews had to deal with slush and lying water on top of some still frozen surfaces. Before the event, the 31-year-old was prepared for a baptism of fire, but no-one, not even nine-time World champion, Sebastien Ogier was ready for what Monte had in store. That’s what made Armstrong’s early event pace so remarkable. Not only was he getting used to a Rally1 car, but he was competing at the top table of rallying for the first time in conditions that few had faced in and around Monaco for many years.
Despite that, the Kesh native immediately announced his arrival in the WRC, posting the third quickest time over the second stage of the event, Esclangon/Seyne-les-Alpes, to sit third overall before a red flag on the next test due to fog left him with a nominal time, relegating him to fifth.
“It was a bit of a baptism of fire to go into that style of rallying and the challenge of new roads, which were covered in snow after we’d recced it in the dry!,” he said.
“It was quite a different challenge in general, learning the different car, tyres, it was just a massive undertaken and it started quite well on Thursday, probably better than we expected.”
For the next two days he was consistent in the difficult conditions, retaining a top six position right up until disaster struck on the penultimate stage of the event. Unfortunately, he and co-driver Shane Byrne aquaplaned when taking a narrow right hander, which sent them into a bank and then ricocheted them into a wall on the opposite side of the road.
The impact broke the steering arm on their M-Sport Ford Puma and although they got one side of the car fixed, they would have been unable to sort the other side had they not run out of time.
“It was about trying to gain experience and learning for the rest of the weekend and fifth-sixth place is really good,” he observed.
“It was really good. It’s hard to take it all in because I’m quite harsh on myself and I always think I can do better and where we went off, you can get surprised, and we got caught out on a narrow place where there was a bit of slush and the front of the car completely aquaplaned to the outside and hit a rock. It wasn’t anything too serious, but it broke the suspension on the front left, and the steering arm on the right.”
Buoyed by their impressive pace throughout, but a little disappointed by the end result, Armstrong is now looking forward to round two in Sweden next month.
“It should be fun! We won it in ‘22, me and Brian [Hoy, in the Junior WRC],” he said. “It should be a good challenge, You need to drive flat out there, but [the weather] should be more consistent, so we will get a better gauge of where we’re at.”
Meanwhile, Fintona’s Aaron Johnston and driver Takamoto Katsuta, finished the season-opener seventh overall after a particularly difficult second day when they suffered two punctures and lost power steering during Friday’s afternoon loop. Despite those added difficulties, they brought their Toyota Gazoo Racing Rally1 Yaris home for some valuable WRC points.
