Jon Armstrong retired from Friday’s leg of Acropolis Rally Greece, one stage after claiming his maiden World Rally Championship stage win.
Lying third overall after remote service, Armstrong set the pace by 0.6 seconds over world champion Sébastien Ogier on SS5 to sit 18.9s off the lead.
However SS6 Stiri 2 proved to be a nightmare as the Irish driver was forced to stop and change a front puncture and drop off the podium.
But worse was to follow as when he set off, his Ford Puma Rally1 was down on power and he then got another puncture for good measure.
In total, he lost four minutes on the stage to fall outside the top 10.
Armstrong explained to DirtFish after the stage: “We had a double puncture – one puncture we stopped to change and then lost all power at the same time. We changed the puncture but there was no point trying to look at the situation in the stage. We had no power then for the last 5km, so we just couldn’t go fast at all.”
He then drove further down the road section where DirtFish observed smoke pouring from the car as well as some audible banging.
Armstrong and co-driver Shane Byrne stopped again to work on the car, with M-Sport team-mates Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy joining them for a while.
But with a broken turbo and oil leaking presenting a fire risk, Armstrong had no choice but to retire for the day.
“It looks like the turbo has gone,” Armstrong told DirtFish. “There’s no power and there’s a small risk of the car going on fire, so it’s a shame.
“I was trying to be neat and tidy and even on that stage we had a puncture at the same time as the turbo went, so double kick in the balls.
“There was no massive impact so it’s a bit surprising,” he added. “I don’t understand [what happened].”
There were still plenty of positives to take from Armstrong’s Friday however, namely that first fastest time.
“It’s nice to get a stage win for sure,” he said. “OK it’s not so nice then when the next stage you’re going from hero to zero but we’ll have to take the positives from having really good pace.”
