“I started in 2017 and now we are here. We just want to make it work!”
A lifetime of work has led up to this. Grégoire Munster has finally broken into the big leagues, bagging a full-time M-Sport Rally1 seat for 2024. Some might suggest he was born for it: he’s from a rallying family, his father Bernard being a Belgian champion and founder of the crack rally preparation firm BMA. But he’s in the big leagues now: it’s all on Grégoire to take advantage of his, perhaps somewhat unexpected, chance on the big stage.
And really, it was Jourdan Serderidis who he has the most to thank for this chance. The gentleman driver, the most loyal of Puma Rally1 customers, has given his fellow countryman a push to the big time.
Munster was given the chance to drive Serderidis’ car in both Rally Chile and the Central European Rally last year. It was a chance to prove to M-Sport he knew how to handle himself, and the Puma, at the highest level of rallying. It amounted to a very public audition for a full-time promotion from the team’s Rally2 line-up, just as Adrien Fourmaux was hoping to achieve.
Munster made two Rally1 starts in 2023
It worked. A 2024 contract alongside Fourmaux followed.
“Without Jourdan I would not have the chance to do these two rallies in Rally1,” explains Munster. “And I think without these two one-shots in the Rally1 in Chile and in Central Europe, I wouldn’t be driving a full season this year.
“You can be lucky, chance exists. But you need to capitalize on it.”
Fortune is certainly an aspect of why Munster has the drive; Ott Tänak leaving for Hyundai opened a window of opportunity. Now he has to seize it.
“You only get this chance once in your life so you have to maximize everything to make sure you have no regrets afterwards,” he astutely points out.
But what does capitalizing on the opportunity look like?
Rallying is an experience sport. When it comes to Rally1, he has the least mileage of anyone lining up in Monte Carlo next week.
Munster on his Rally1 debut in Chile last year
Targets have been set by the big boss. Malcolm Wilson has made clear what he expects Munster to do.
“It’s up to us to make sure we try and keep that pressure off him,” said Wilson. “And again, just re-emphasizing that it is a learning year; he has to accept that.
“In one sense he’s had a different approach to Adrien. He seems to go very well when the conditions are difficult and tricky. Places like Japan and even CER, which was a tricky rally as well. So I think where he needs to look at improving his performance is on gravel.”
Tricky conditions and Monte Carlo may as well be synonyms. There’s no snow forecast but it’s likely to be cold enough for patches of ice to make the stages a tad sketchy. Based on his apparent strengths, the season opener would seem a good chance for Munster to lay down a marker. But as Wilson dictated, Munster is keen not to get carried away.
M-Sport's Malcolm Wilson wants Munster to treat 2024 as a learning year
“I don’t think anyone expects anything from us in terms of wins or podiums, we just want to improve throughout the season,” says Munster. “We’re going to head to Sweden, nobody is expecting us there [in terms of performance]. Portugal, Sardinia, we did it once and we’re going to compete against guys who did it eight or nine times. So it’s more the second half of the season where I think we can try some things. I have a good momentum and I just want to carry on like this and mark progression.
“They [Wilson and team principal Rich Millener] know they have a really young team and we are not going to fight for a championship. But they want us to finish the events and step by step, try to make better results. And sometimes be the surprise of the event.
“We’re outsiders. But people like outsiders. And sometimes we can do something great.”
Last season’s less experienced M-Sport driver, Pierre-Louis Loubet, had a season to forget in 2023, having stepped up to a full-time seat from his part-time campaign a year earlier.
There had been reason for hope in 2022. Acropolis was blockbuster: Loubet, with the advantage of a late road position, set fastest stage times and briefly led the rally, going toe-to-toe with the most successful rally driver of all time, Sébastien Loeb, in one of the other Pumas.
It all fell apart in 2023. The first bit of Loubet’s story is the part Munster wants to repeat this year; he’s making a point not to give the ending to Loubet’s Rally1 adventure any thought.
“We did Central Europe and sometimes we did a fourth-fastest stage time. Sometimes we were in front of Suninen or Katsuta and stuff like this; then people didn’t see it coming and were happily surprised. So that’s the goal; to get that pace but to get it more often and try to get better and regularly at a good level.
The 25-year-old showed speed on last year's CER
“It’s a high-level sport. With any sport, things can go wrong, things can go well. It depends how you tackle the challenges. For sure sometimes it doesn’t go as planned but we had two events the previous year and they went pretty well, so for me there is no reason to look at how somebody else’s career went or something.
“Ott had a difficult moment before and he came back to win a world championship. Anything can happen. It’s not always about failing; it’s about coming back stronger.”
This, ultimately, is why Munster is at M-Sport. There was no given he’d end up getting a chance at the big time. Thanks to his family team’s status as the defacto Hyundai Belgium squad (his younger brother Charles is also a Hyundai Motorsport-backed driver), Grégoire had a multi-year stint as a Hyundai junior that culminated in WRC2 victory at Rally Japan in 2022.
It was a risk to drop out of the Hyundai structure and go to M-Sport; he was leaving the family team behind to go it alone and hope that by joining Dovenby Hall’s WRC2 operation, it would lead to bigger things.
Munster's thinks his move away from Hyundai has paid off
“M-Sport is often giving the chance to young drivers to get mileage at the top level,” points out Munster. “They did it with [Elfyn] Evans, they did it with Tänak, they did it with Adrien, with [Gus] Greensmith, so they are a bit like a talent factory. They are the only ones that really give a chance to young guys. So, yeah, that was a part of the plan for sure.”
His plan, through a mixture of good fortune and proper execution of the opportunities that befell him, has landed him the hot seat. Those who have gone before him of late at M-Sport have crashed one too many times and found themselves either turfed out completely or dropped back down to the support classes. No pressure, then.
“I don’t feel that much pressure and I think pressure in general is a privilege. It means you have the chance to do something great that maybe somebody else cannot.
“I’ll take this opportunity as a big chance. I just want to do the best possible and have no regrets.”
