Jon Armstrong has come out of the gate strongly in his maiden World Rally Championship campaign despite his lack of top-flight experience – yet he’s not always feeling content at stage ends.
In Monte Carlo, he surprised everyone by running as high as third overall on the first day and holding sixth until a penultimate-stage crash ended his rally. And after a solid outing in Sweden, he impressed again in Safari with a second-fastest time on Sleeping Warrior and putting in a string of running repairs to keep his Ford Puma Rally1 going – even when he suffered a broken driveshaft and compression strut.
It would have been reasonable to think Armstrong would be rooted to the bottom of the Rally1 timesheets at the start of the year, given the first three rounds of the season were the first top-level starts of his career. But he hasn’t been. Instead, there’s been plenty of times this season where he’s been going toe-to-toe with the factory Hyundais on the timesheets.
That he’s no longer satisfied to sit at the back and collect mileage is telling.
Safari running repairs showed tenacity even though Armstrong was only rewarded with 15th overall
“I’m quite p***** off whenever I’m not beating those guys,” Armstrong told DirtFish, “so that’s always a good sign.
“I really want to know how to get closer and closer. It’s a very competitive field and everyone is the best in the world. It’s good we’re close as we are sometimes, and then sometimes we’re a little bit further back, which is to be expected given the caliber of drivers that we’re against.
“We’ll keep pushing to get closer and closer; that’s all I really want to achieve.”
Asphalt was not kind to M-Sport last season; Josh McErlean crashed out of both Rally Islas Canarias and Rally Japan, while neither he nor Grégoire Munster dipped under the one second per kilometer average deficit mark to winners of WRC asphalt events last year.
Despite that 2025 deficit by other Puma pilots, Armstrong remains optimistic heading to Croatia; he is, after all, the defending winner, having clinched victory during Croatia’s temporary step back to European Rally Championship status last year. Getting to the end of Safari Rally Kenya without retiring has also left him energized to push on.
Irishman won wet ERC edition of Croatia Rally last year
“You need to be very determined in this game,” said Armstrong. “OK, we’re not quite at the front at the minute, but we have flashes of what it could be with a couple of good stage times. So if we can start to be more consistent going forward and start to piece it all together, then it’s encouraging.
“At the minute, it is tough. But there’s always going to be tough days and you just have to sort of ride through them and hopefully then there’ll be good ones out the back.
“I’m looking forward to the other gravel rallies for the season but also now going to Croatia and Tarmac will be really nice.”
Armstrong’s knowledge of the Hankook asphalt tires in competition is practically nonexistent. He used a full set of the Hankook asphalt supersofts only twice at the season opener: during shakedown and the 1.7-mile Monaco Circuit superspecial.
