Yesterday carries little relevance in rallying. It’s all about today, and it’s equally about tomorrow.
Today, DirtFish Women in Motorsport driver Aoife Raftery is stringing together a strong run of momentum in both the American Rally Association and British Rally Championships.
Tomorrow, she plans to be testing her mettle in the World Rally Championship.
Last weekend’s Grampian Forest Rally was a happy marriage of both objectives: important points for her BRC campaign, important experience with the stages Aoife drove likely to be used at WRC Rally Scotland when it debuts in 2027.
“It was a great weekend with some fantastic stages – really fast which suited us quite well, but the rhythm changed as much as the surface so it was quite technical as well,” Aoife told DirtFish.
“With the roads being used in the WRC next year, our goal would be to compete in that event, so to get the knowledge was really important.”
Aoife has won 100% of the British championship rallies she's started in 2026
Aoife dominated the Rally3 class in Scotland, and finished a superb 11th overall (and fifth in the BRC) against WRC yardsticks.
“Having Jon Armstrong, Romet Jürgenson, Nikolay Gryazin and Yohan Rossel at the event gave me a really good baseline of where I’m at and how far away I am on seconds per kilometer,” she explained.
“Even though I’m in a Rally3 car and they’re in Rally2, it’s still useful to compare as it shows us what we need to work on to improve, so the event was really useful that way.
“We were very, very lucky to be running on Pirelli tires as it was really slippy but we had good grip. Some others had punctures, but we got through the rally cleanly without any damage.”
It was far from the only time Aoife has driven for points while also keeping an eye on the future, though.
“It’s quite exciting to be looking to the future and competing in a WRC event, not just Scotland and Grampian but of course US and Tennessee,” she said.
“Competing in the ARA this year, Overmountain Rally Tennessee is another event we’ll be doing this year and hopefully using that to prepare for next year.
“We want to be competing in some WRC events in 2027, so any knowledge we can gain is valuable and it’s nice that the results keep building our momentum.”
Aoife, along with co-driver Hannah McKillop, is one of several industry-leading women in motorsport attending the DirtFish Women in Motorsport next weekend (Saturday August 22), leading her own workshop in rally driving. General admission tickets are still available.
