After the first full day of action at the Central European Rally, Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy driver Josh McErlean is holding 15th place overall, fifth in the WRC2 Challenger Category and sixth in WRC2.
The Skoda Motorsport /Toksport driver is enjoying his first run in the Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 on a tarmac round of the World Rally Championship and his first tarmac rally at this level since the corresponding event last season.
The rally opened with a spectator stage and a traditional closed-road stage in the Czech Republic on Thursday night. A further six stages were completed in the Czech Republic on Friday before the weekend’s action in Germany and Austria. Given the spread out nature of the event crews only arrived the service park on Karpham late on Friday night. It was their first visit to the service park after leaving Thursday morning for the ceremonial start in Prague.
McErlean and co-driver James Fulton are happy with their performance over the first day and half of action but know Saturday is another big day too.
“Today was much more slipper than expected but the roads in Germany and Austria on Saturday should be cleaner,” said McErlean.
“We are hoping to build on Friday’s work and get into a good rhythm.”
Fellow Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy crew, William Creighton, and Liam Regan, in the M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally2 set very good times over seven of the eight stages run so far.
However, a stage four puncture cost over two minutes as they stopped to change it.
They ended the day 21st overall and 10th in the WRC2 Challenger class.
Outside of the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy crews tackling the Central European Rally there is plenty of other Irish interest in the penultimate round of the WRC.
“The puncture was unfortunate, we clipped what might have been a rock face and damaged the rim,” said Creighton.
Aaron Johnston and his driver Takamoto Katsuta finished Friday infifth place overall. The Toyota Yaris Rally1 crew set fastest time on the event’s sixth stage.
“Another busy day tomorrow where we will face more, but different challenges,” said Johnston on Friday night.
Eamonn Boland and MJ Morrisey are second in the WRC Masters Cup, on what is their first WRC outing in a Skoda Fabia Rally2.
Overnight they held second place in the WRC2 Masters Cup behind German rally legend Armin Kremer.
Conor Wilson and Darren Curran had a coming together with a stage one chicane which meant they were unbale to complete the first proper stage on Thursday.
However the Hyundai i20 R5 crew were able to rejoin under Super Rally rules on Friday morning and have completed today’s extremely challenging stages without further incident.
With 123.46km of competition Saturday is the longest day of the event, featuring the innovative new SS10/13 Beyond Borders (24.33km) – crossing the lines between Germany and Austria. The first of six stages is scheduled for just before 8am.
Kerry Motorsport News 