M-Sport Ford World Rally Teams

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Podcast on the season so far with Millener & Armstrong / Byrne (who are the best listen) :

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1sL...t=3872&ct=3872

[Morte66]

https://www.wrc.com/en/results-and-s...ship-standings

Things seem pretty bleak for M-Sport: seven Toyota/Hyundai WRC1 drivers, then seven assorted WRC2 drivers, then the first M-Sport WRC1 driver.

But I feel in my bones that Armstrong will have some better results this season, and close it up a bit.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Jon Armstrong - He was there all along.

After this weekend’s WRC Croatia Rally, Jon Armstrong and co driver Shane Byrne came away with 9 x top 3 stage times and 6 points gained from 3rd overall on the Sunday stages and 3rd in the hotly contested power stage. A truly remarkable demonstration of pace and ability in only their fourth event in a Rally 1 car.

Should we be surprised? Frankly not..
We’ve known about Jon’s pace and prodigious talent for well over a decade now. Who remembers him setting 2nd fastest overall times on a wet Ulster rally in 2012 in a ST Fiesta? Or racing hard with both Callum Devine and Rob Duggan in the first versions of the R2 cars in 2015 in what I call a golden generation of young drivers?
Since then, he’s had various attempts at JWRC, again with championship winning pace but results getting away for various reasons.

But he never gave up. His belief in himself never wavered. He never doubted that a career in rallying was in his future. He never stopped asking anyone he could to give him a chance, give him his shot. And anyone that could help, generally did but it was always going to something monumental to make it happen.

That monumental thing came in the form of the patron saint of Irish Rallying, John Coyne and the MI rally academy.
A plan was hatched to run Jon in the 2024 ERC in a MSport Fiesta Rally 2 under the Motorsport Ireland banner. Encouraging results with many fastest times followed. A new co driver Shane Byrne was recruited for another assault in 2025 and wins in Rally Ceredigion and Rally Croatia repaid the faith shown in him.

For 2026 Jon and Shane were elevated to the full MSport WRC Rally 1 team, a move that raised a few eyebrows at the time. Many thought it was too much for them. Social media was awash with other names supposedly more deserving but after 4 rounds of this year’s championship, those detractors have fallen completely silent.

Jon has yet to set a fastest time or win a world rally but it’s coming as sure as night follows day. After this weekend, the rally world has really sat up and realised Jon Armstrong has arrived but for most of us in Ireland, he was there all along.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

Nice comments by Jonne Halttunen on Jon Armstrong:

“OK, M-Sport is positive in a way because for me they have been doing fairly well. Especially Jon [Armstrong] who has been for me the star of the season. OK, there has been a lot of small mistakes but he’s still learning and trying to show that he belongs to the top tier. Which he actually does if you ask from me because with that level of experience what he has, he’s doing a mega job at the moment.