MJ’s unlucky 13th Rallye Monte Carlo

MJ’s unlucky 13^th Rallye Monte Carlo

It was a case of unlucky 13 for Mickey Joe Morrisey on last weekend’s Rallye Monte Carlo.

It was the Waterford man’s 13^th attempt at the legendary World Rally Championship season opener.

All attempts have been alongside Eamonn Boland in a variety of cars but this, on what was his 55^th WRC start only the second time he failed the finish the rally.

Boland debuted a new Citroen C3 Rally 2 on last weekend’s 18-stage rally.

For some reason, the car just would not fire up in Parc Ferme Sunday morning. The car was just being a temperamental rally car.

A few hours later when their engineer, Dom Buckley went to fetch the stricken car from the car park it fired up at the first attempt.

MJ has to look back as far as the 2015 event to find his last non-finish on this particular rally.

He made his debut on the event in 2012 and has contested everyone since

His and Eamonn’s result on the event are

Start      Year                       Car                                         Position

1              2010                      Mitsubishi Lancer             19^th IRC

2              2011                       Mitsubishi Lancer             28^th IRC

3:            2012                       Mitsubishi Lancer            36^th

4              2013                       Subaru Impreza                 14^th

5              2014                      Subaru Impreza                 14^th

6              2015                      Subaru Impreza                 DNF

7              2016                      Subaru Impreza                 29^th

8              2017                      Ford Fiesta R5                    28^th

9              2018                      Ford Fiesta r5                     21^ST

10           2019                      Ford Fiesta R5                    25^TH

11           2020                       Ford Fiesta R5                    26^th

                2021                      No Rally Pandemic

12           2022                       Ford Fiesta Rally2             35^th

13           2023                      Citroen C3 Rally 2             DNF

Eamonn has contested a total of 18 Monte Carlo rallies

He made his debut there is 2003 in a Subaru Impreza WRC. He and co-driver Francis Regan finished 15^thA year later they failed to finish in an S7 Impreza.

Amends were made in 2005 when they finished 17^th in an S9 version.  In 2006 and 2007 and the same crew competed in a Ford Focus WRC and were 36^th and 15^th respectively.

On this year’s Rallye Monte Carlo, only French legend Francois Delecour and Swiss Olivier Burri had more starts at 24 each

The all-time record is held by Norwegian Leif Vold-Johansen.

Next up for Eamonn and MJ will be their maiden attempt at Rally Croatia in April.

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