Jon Armstrong claimed 11th overall on his first Rally2 outing in almost six years, finishing just three seconds outside the top ten in the Royal Rally of Scandinavia. The Fermanagh driver earned a drive in the MRF Tyres Ford Fiesta after four consecutive victories in the ERC3 series, and he declared himself content with his performance in the more high profile category against experienced World Championship drivers.

“It was a good opportunity, and great to be in the top class,” admitted Jon. “Obviously there is a bit of work to do if I get another opportunity, but you can see the potential. It’s really about having more time now to find the pace. It would have been nice to be a wee bit closer to the fastest stage times, but we improved as the rally went on. It was still a lot of fun and things went really well.”

Jon was running fifth on the road on day one, and first on the road on day two, meaning he was impeded by having to sweep the loose gravel off the racing line. Despite this disadvantage he was lying 15th overall after the opening loop of four stages. He slipped back a place after he hit trouble on stage five, before mounting a recovery on day two to claim 11th.

“On stage five I hit one of the anti-cut posts, which is basically a block with a stick out of the top,” he explained. “They put them on the road on a few places on the inside of the corners and it can be handy enough to find yourself on top of one. I went over one of those and did damage.

“Thankfully we were quite close to the end of the stage so we didn’t drop too much time. There was no other dramas or issues. I had a wee bit of a moment on Saturday morning on the first stage when I went a bit wide on one corner but thankfully there was nothing hiding in the shrubbery. I went smoothly and just tried to enjoy it and pick up the pace where we could. We were starting first on the road on the last day so that didn’t really help. We were always doing a bit of cleaning compared to some other drivers, but that is the way it goes.”

Armstrong’s two previous outings in a Rally2 car in 2017 saw him finish 16th and 13th in his class, and he declared himself happy with another improvement in Sweden.

“There was a lot of things to try to get up to speed with, so it wasn’t too bad,” he acknowledged.

“Everything was new for this rally. New co-driver, new team, new tyres, new car. The hard thing is getting up to the level you need to be at. You can drive the car fairly well, but to take it that little bit further and get an extra tenth here and there you have to push that bit more.

“The pre-event test we had maybe wasn’t representative of the roads they had at the rally. You have to try to find speed and get the balance of the car when it has been set up for a different style of road, so we made some adjustments as we went along.

“By the end of the rally it was a lot more comfortable to drive the car. We definitely progressed and things were starting to go fairly well.”

Having tasted the higher level of competition in Rally2 Armstrong is keen to secure another drive in the European Rally Championship, but he admits that he is unsure when he will get another chance.

“I would like to have another opportunity in Rally2 but I’m not too sure when,” he said.

“The plan is to work towards something in the European Championship with MRF Tyres but I am doing Rome next in the Rally3 Fiesta, which is about three weeks away.

“For now, I will go back to the Rally3 car and try to do a good job with that.”