Mãrtiņš Sesks is M-Sport’s established force when it comes to fast gravel rallies.
His was the first Ford Puma Rally1 home two weeks ago in Estonia and at Rally Estonia 2025 as well, and likely would’ve done the same in Finland last year too had his windshield not severely misted on Saturday.
The same applied to his home event, Latvia 2024, where a technical problem on the powerstage cost him an expected podium and the position of top Ford to team-mate Adrien Fourmaux.
Beating the Latvian on these roads therefore won’t be simple, but M-Sport’s two Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy drivers are confident they can race him considering their speed in Estonia.
Josh McErlean told DirtFish: “I think to be first Ford is an ideal objective [and] try and get closer to the Hyundais as well because, OK, Friday [in Estonia] we weren’t that far away from them, so I think that has to be the aim.”
McErlean’s pace was far closer to Sesks’ in Estonia this year than last, losing just over 20s instead of over a minute to Sesks over an equivalent leg of the event.
“I think if you take this rally last year and those stages on Friday we were miles behind,” said McErlean. “But it shows that we’ve made steps, so that’s good. But yeah, there’s still improvement [to be made].
“It’s just a shame we missed out on half the rally [with an exhaust manifold issue], because obviously that’s a big thing whenever there’s so limited testing. So yeah, we’ll try to hit the ground running in Finland. Obviously, it’s a lot of new stages, so it’ll spice it up.”
Jon Armstrong has only started Rally Finland once, and that was 10 years ago in a front-wheel-drive car. However he also has reason to back himself after his pace in Estonia.
“I think Estonia showed that our pace is quite good, particularly compared with our team-mates and the third Hyundai,” he said. “Hopefully we can capitalize a little more on our road position in Finland as well.
“I feel like we’re not a million miles away from where we want to be. Obviously, it’s my first time doing Finland in around 10 years, so I’m going to have to really push myself and try to hit the ground running.
“The weather could also play a role – you never know if there might be some rain – so we’ll have to adapt to whatever conditions we get.
“But why not aim for a top-seven or top-six finish and try to achieve our best result of the season so far? And who knows, if the pace is there, maybe we can do even better than that.”
Sesks added: “After seeing some good pace from us in Estonia, I’m looking forward to seeing what we can achieve in Finland. Estonia was great preparation, it has a lot of similarities to Finland, and I think we will be able to be competitive.”
