Best ever WRC result for McErlean and Treacy at Acropolis

The M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 crew finished fourth in Greece.

The M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 crew of Kilrea's Josh McErlean and Killeagh's Eoin Treacy were fourth in the EKO Acropolis Rally, round eight of the World Rally Championship. Picture. M-Sport Ford.

The M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 crew of Kilrea's Josh McErlean and Killeagh's Eoin Treacy enjoyed their best ever result in a round of the World Rally Championship with a fourth place finish in the EKO Acropolis Rally, round eight of the World Rally Championship. 

Their team mates Jon Armstrong/Shane Byrne, who claimed a maiden WRC stage win on Friday only to suffer a double puncture and turbo trouble a stage later, returned under Super Rally and were classified 20th. The rally was won by Sebastien Ogier (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) with his 69th win of his WR career and his second Acropolis victory since 2011.

He finished 58.3s ahead of Thierry Neuville (Hyundai i20 N Rally1).

Neuville began the final leg with a narrow 4.1s lead over Ogier, who moved 1.3s ahead on the day's opening stage. They both set the same time on SS15 ahead of the penultimate stage. In an absorbing contest, two rear wheel punctures saw Neuville drop 53.5s behind Ogier, who also went on to claim maximum Power Stage (5) and Super Sunday (5) points.

Japan's Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) and his Fintona co-driver Aaron Johnston were third overall to move to within seven points of championship leader and team mate, Welsh driver Elfyn Evans, who finished the event in seventh - suffering from running first on the road for most of the rally.

It was a memorable occasion for McErlean/Treacy but it almost went awry on the penultimate stage when their Ford Puma Rally1 slid wide on a left-hander and went off the road some 20km into the 25.39km stage. Luckily, they managed to get back on course, albeit having lost almost 30 seconds. 

McErlean explained, "Just out-braked down a hill. The tyres are gone." 

The incident saw them fall into the clutches of the Toyota of Finland's Sami Pajari and the Hyundai of French ace Adrien Fourmaux, who were only 14s behind. On the final and Power Stage, a rear right puncture ended Fourmaux's chances and while Pajari was second fastest through the stage, McErlean/Treacy did enough and won the battle for fourth by 6.7s. McErlean said, “We definitely didn’t make it easy for ourselves on the last (previous) stage. Massive thanks to whole team and every single person that kept on believing in us because it’s been a very tough start to the year. What a rally, what a stage!"

Meanwhile, Armstrong summed up his weekend, "It's so nice to get our first stage win, but a shame how the Friday ended. We have to take the positives, which were the pace was really good. These cars can deal with the conditions really well, it's so rough in there."

Although he finished seventh in the Spielberg FIA F2 feature race, Offaly's Alex Dunne was later promoted to sixth after his Rodin Motorsport team mate Martinius Stenshorne was handed a time penalty related to serving a mandatory pitstop under the Virtual Safety Car VSC). In accordance with the Sporting Regulations it was converted into a 30-second time penalty moving Stenshorne, who had finished sixth on track, down to 19th. Dunne was promoted to sixth and gained an additional two championship points. In Saturday's sprint race (reverse grid) Dunne started from ninth and finished fourth, he remains fourth in the series - 28 points behind championship leader MP Motorsport and Italian Gabriel Mini (108pts).

From P2 in the feature race Dunne fell back after a slow start and was passed by eventual winner Bulgarian Nikolay Tsolov and Mini. The safety car was deployed for an opening lap incident when Sebastián Montoya and Rafael Villagómez collided on the way to Turn 3. Racing resumed on Lap 4 with Tsolov leading. Dunne pitted on Lap 8 for a set of softs with Tsolov coming in a lap later. Having pressurised Tsolov after the pitstops Dunne finally got through but there was little between them and by Lap 19 the Offaly driver was only 0.3s ahead. Tsolov continued to exert pressure on the Clonbullogue driver, who locked up at Turn 4 on Lap 24 and ran wide at the final corner as Tsolov went in front. Dunne then came under pressure from Mini and eventually slipped down to seventh behind team mate Stenshorne as he lost momentum and his tyres also suffered.