In the olden days, Craig Breen’s Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC would have been wearing ones on the doors at next week’s Ypres Rally – the Irishman was the last person to win the Belgian classic.
But Breen’s not overly interested in what happened two years ago. He’s focused entirely on what’s coming next week. And what’s coming next week is an opportunity for him to become the World Rally Championship’s second new winner is as many events, following Kalle Rovanperä’s duck-breaking Rally Estonia.
Unlike the vast majority of his colleagues, Breen knows Ypres. He’s competed there four times, finishing on the podium on his debut in 2013 in a Peugeot 207 S2000, posting fastest times in the next two years (when a recalcitrant Peugeot 208 T16 precluded another top-three) and winning in 2019 at the wheel of a Volkswagen Polo R5.
Next week will be his first Ypres outing in a World Rally Car, but he did start and win Aarova Rally Oudenaarde driving a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC last October – before Belgium’s WRC bow was lost to the pandemic.
Photo: Hyundai Motorsport
“Yes, I won the rally last time, but this will be a completely different ballgame this time,” Breen told DirtFish.
“This is the world championship, all the big boys are ready to go for it. Can I win it? Why not? I definitely think we can put a good fight. It depends how quickly I can find the feeling on the test, I’ve got one day to discover everything and be on the pace but there’s no reason why we can’t.
“Ypres is one of the events I really like the most. It’s definitely one of the most interesting and specialized rallies you’ll ever do. On paper, it seems to be a strange profile of event but when you are in the car it is an amazing challenge. At pretty much every junction, the surface is a little bit different; it’s an event I really look forward to and it’s a rally worthy of World Rally Championship status.”
Breen won’t have to look far for his closest competition, with local hero Thierry Neuville looking forward to the WRC arriving in his backyard for the first time. Neuville won the Ypres Rally Masters element of the 2019 event, driving an i20 Coupe WRC.
Breen’s first and only asphalt WRC outing aboard a Hyundai came in Croatia earlier this year, where he finished a distant eighth.
“Croatia was a bit of a struggle, but I got to grips with things towards the end of the rally. Let’s see what we can do next week.”
