What’s next for Jon Armstrong?

What’s next for Jon Armstrong?

Immediately, it’s testing. Tomorrow (Wednesday) he and co-driver Cameron Fair will be getting the miles in ahead of this weekend’s Barum Rally Zlín in their M-Sport Poland Ford Fiesta Rally3.

But forget the short-term view, what about the long-term?

We actually asked a very similar question all the way back in March before the European Rally Championship season began.

Armstrong had just missed out on the Junior WRC title for the second year in a row, but had struck a deal to drive a Fiesta Rally3 on Rally Serras de Fafe.

His ambition however was to upgrade that ‘3’ to a ‘2’.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be in Rally2,” Armstrong said. “I think that could be really exciting for me to see what sort of times I could do.”

The Northern Irishman managed it for Royal Rally of Scandinavia, jumping into the Ford Fiesta Rally2 that had been vacated by Pontus Tidemand. But for the rest of the year Armstrong’s been in the Rally3 Fiesta.

That, however, is no bad thing as it’s allowed Armstrong to ditch a reputation he was in danger of building for himself.

After two title near misses, Armstrong has finally got the job done – winning the ERC3 title with five wins from five so far.

The importance of this achievement cannot be underestimated, as Armstrong even brings it up unprompted by DirtFish.

“It’s nice to win a championship, I didn’t really have any title to my name before that so it’s always good to get something to put beside your name to sort of highlight I guess that you’ve competed at that level and you’ve been successful,” he said.

Armstrong then nervously laughed: “I missed out on Junior WRC two years in a row so it’s nice to have something!”

To the outside world, the ERC3 title is hardly the most revered title to win – particularly as entries were thin on the ground in 2023.

Armstrong knows that, but it doesn’t matter one jot. You’ve got to be in it to win it, and Armstrong has executed his job perfectly.

“Yeah, like I said the last two to three years I’ve been at a high level in terms of preparation and performance across the Junior WRC and the rallies I’ve been doing,” he explained.

“I feel like it sort of wraps up those three years into something you’re able to show to people.

“But it would be great if the championship did have more people and it had a bit more substance to it, but to win any championship you have to be there and win.

“M-Sport Poland have provided a really good team and the car hasn’t missed a beat all year, the reliability is a big factor in being able to achieve that too. It’s just really nice to be honest to achieve it together with the team and those guys they’re really passionate as well about trying to have good performance.

“Every rally there’s a big focus on the seconds per kilometer difference to the fastest Rally2. In Rome it was actually really good on Tarmac, especially on Sunday we were consistently under two seconds, in and around 1.8s/km down off the fastest per stage so that was a big improvement over Canaries and last year in Rome with the older spec car.

“They were really happy from that point-of-view that things are improving, it was just a really good weekend. And also to get Cameron the co-drivers’ championship, it was really good to celebrate together at the end of the rally.”

The championship’s wrapped up but the season’s far from over. Armstrong and Fair will be out to complete the same mission this weekend: win the class and prove both their worth and the car’s.

But Armstrong’s desire is unwavered. He still wants that Rally2 ride and is prepared to put in the hard yards to earn it for 2024 now he’s given himself a platform to build from.

“Yeah,” he began, “I guess it probably still is more in the dream ballpark at the minute, but yeah.

“There’s a lot of work involved in order to make something like that happen. We did Sweden with MRF Tyres and that went pretty well as a whole.

“I guess my pace wasn’t realistically where I would have wanted it to be but it still wasn’t a bad rally and it gives us something to work from. We started a good relationship with MRF Tyres and they’re interested to work together next year so there’s some foundations in place to make it happen but there’s still a lot of work involved to put the whole package together.

“We’ll see in the coming months once we start to look into it and see what’s possible, then we’ll get a better idea. But even to do selected rounds would be really interesting – choosing some of the events I have good experience of.

“I think the big thing is getting time in one of those cars because they are similar to a Rally3, there’s no question you can hop into a Rally2 and drive it in quite a similar way but I think ultimately to get those last let’s say a second per km or half a second per km is just seat time and getting more comfortable with the chassis of the car and let’s say leaning on the chassis and feeling how that works compared to a Rally3 is a bit different.

“It moves round more than a Rally3 car, so you don’t really have the same chassis feeling. I think that was what I found the biggest struggle in Sweden was just the chassis being so different.

“But yeah I think obviously with seat time you get used to anything and you just need to have a bit more of a look at your driving style to find the most speed out of it, so yeah. That’s the aim.

“I think on certain rallies I could have really good pace based on what we can do in the Rally3 car, it’s just trying to be able to get that same ultimate feeling in a Rally2 car to get the times.

“Just a bit of hard work to do now! Hopefully we can make something happen.”