Jon Armstrong and Eoin Treacy finish twentieth in the Rally di Roma Capitale
DIFFICULT WEEKEND: Jon Armstrong/Eoin Treacy (Ford Fiesta Rally2) in action during Rally di Roma Capitale, the fifth round of the European Rally Championship. Picture courtesy of @World- Red Bull Content Pool.
There’s no doubt the Irish crew of Jon Armstrong and Eoin Treacy will have better results in the European Rally Championship after they finished twentieth overall (seventeenth ERC crew) in the Rally di Roma Capitale, the fifth round of the series where a three minute road penalty dropped them some eight places down the order in what was a difficult weekend.
For the second time in succession, the event was won by the Italian crew of Andrea Crugnola/Pietro Ometto (Citroen C3 Rally2), who finished the 13-stage rally 22.3s ahead of the Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 of fellow Italians Simone Campedelli/Tania Canton.
As Crugnola and Campedelli battled for supremacy and while Armstrong was fifteenth after Saturday’s fourth stage, he was still only some 11s off a top ten spot.
He went on to set his best stage time of the day on SS5 after which he said; “It’s a step in the right direction for sure, let's keep trying. Now I can drive a bit more like I want to, the team are working really hard now so let's keep going."
On the day’s closing stages his M-Sport Fiesta struggled with understeer.
“We'll see if we can improve it, but it's hard to get a rhythm. We've been trying lots of different things so hopefully we'll figure it out."
The pair completed the day still in fifteenth spot and somewhat unhappy, he added; "It's hard to be happy completely with where we are, we struggled with the rhythm and the balance.”
On Sunday’s final leg of six stages the pair continued to struggle for performance.
However, on SS10 they posted the fourth fastest ERC time only to incur a three minute road penalty for early arrival at a time control that dropped them ten places down the leaderboard and denied them the battle for a place on the fringes of the top ten.
To his credit, Armstrong was magnanimous.
"We made a bit of an error going into one of the timing controls, these things happen and drivers make mistakes.’"
On the final stage they struck something soon after the stage start that damaged the steering, at the stage finish.
He remarked; “Not our weekend, a big thanks to M-Sport, Eoin (Treacy) on the notes and to the team and the Motorsport Ireland Academy and our sponsors.”
Championship leader Hayden Paddon (Hyundai i20 N Rally2) finished the event in sixth place to maintain a narrow advantage in the series.
Meanwhile, at Spa-Francorchamps in the FIA F3 series Offaly’s Alex Dunne finished tenth in the feature race and was sixteenth in the Sprint Race.
In the latest three races in the Porsche Sprint Challenge GB series that took place at Croft, Ballylickey racer Robert Cronin had a fifth, sixth and tenth placed finishes on board his Parker Classic Racing prepared Porsche.
1. A. Crugnola/P. Ometto (Citroen C3 Rally2)+1h. 53m. 10.9s
2. S. Campedelli Simone/T. Canton (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2)+22.3s
3. E. Llarena/S. Fernandez (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2)+27.9s
4. M. Franceschi/A. Malfoy (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2)+32.1s
5. S. Tempestini/S. Itu (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2)+32.1
6. H. Paddon/J. Kennard (Hyundai i20 N Rally2)+38.2
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