M-SPORT CREWS NAVIGATE TRICKY RALLY ISLAS CANARIAS

M-Sport Ford World Rally Team has reached the end of the fourth round of the FIA World Rally Championship with Grégoire Munster and Louis Louka the only Puma Rally1 crew to make it to the end of the event, taking 11th overall.

After what proved to be a tough weekend for the M-Sport crews, both Munster and McErlean made the most of the opportunity to continue to learn, improve the car and test set-up options for the specific Tarmac conditions.

An incredible atmosphere took over the island of Gran Canaria during the week, with fans lining the streets, stages, and filling the service park in Las Palmas as early as Monday, before the cars had even come off the trucks. The local fans came out in force to make Rally Islas Canarias’ first WRC appearance a true spectacle.

The stages themselves would however prove a challenge to the crews. Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy, facing their first dry, full-asphalt rally in the Puma Rally1, were struggling to get comfortable with the car, find and understand the grip levels, whilst building the confidence to push on the race track-like surfaces.

Munster and Louka would experience similar issues. Both crews would make set-up changes at the first midday service to try to compensate. Still not feeling fully comfortable, the teammates would continue working together on the road sections to try new ideas. With only minor improvements, the team would suggest some bigger, more radical changes in evening service to try to find some more pace on Saturday.

Munster, albeit still struggling with confidence, decreased his deficit to the Hyundai’s ahead of him throughout the afternoon loop and showed progress was being made. Sadly, his progress would be cut short after sliding off the road on SS11. Thanks to the huge spectator turnout, a group nearby was able to help get them back onto the road to complete the stage and the afternoon loop. He would finish Saturday 13th overall, with McErlean, who would have a clean Saturday, just over a minute in front in 10th position.

But Sunday would have a sting in the tail for McErlean and Treacy. An optimistic pacenote saw the #55 crew understeer into a barrier 4.9km into the day’s opening stage, the damage meaning that the Irish pairing were not able to make repairs to continue, bringing their hard-fought event to an abrupt end.

Munster would gain a couple of positions throughout Sunday, and with the unfortunate demise of McErlean, the Luxembourger would take the sensible approach to bring the car to the finish of the rally, taking eighth on the Wolf Power Stage and 11th overall.

Despite a tough weekend for the team, both Munster and McErlean can take great learning from their experiences on Gran Canaria, improving their knowledge of the car and their understanding of Tarmac set-up options with the new Hankook tyres.

FIA JWRC Champion Romet Jürgenson's rally would begin on a difficult note, with a pacenote error seeing the crew go off the road and get stuck in an armco barrier. This would unfortunately end Jürgenson and co-driver Siim Oja's day early. Restarting on Saturday, they faced a strong WRC2 field with the disadvantage of the missed valuable seat time from Friday.

Despite this, the Estonian crew set consistent top-15 times throughout the morning and afternoon. It was an important weekend of learning, marking only their second WRC event in the Fiesta Rally2 and their second outing on Tarmac after the British Rally Championship opener in February. Navigating the challenging Spanish conditions, they focused on building confidence and gaining experience, pushing through to reach the finish with more valuable experience gained.

The Championship now returns to a long stretch of gravel rallies, starting at Rally de Portugal in only a couple of weeks’ time, where the team looks forward to returning at full strength on more familiar ground.

Richard Millener, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Principal, said:

“Of course it is never easy to finish an event so far off the pace of the top positions, but we must remember that both our crews are still in the early stages of their careers, and at a rally where the road conditions mean it is a complete leveller for the top cars. Any mistakes or struggles with setup and confidence here are heavily punished.

“It is a shame for Josh and Eoin, but learning at the top level like this was never going to be plain sailing. Greg and Louis did well to keep any frustrations at bay and continued to work hard all weekend at improving both the car and their own performance.

“Away from the team’s result, I would like to say a huge congratulations to the event organisers. To rise up to the level of WRC, and have so many spectators attend and celebrate this sport is something that should be very much commended. It was fantastic to see this event’s debut set such a high bar of how to run a global motorsport event.”

Grégoire Munster, 11th overall, said:

“Although we learnt a lot in our pre-event test, sadly we still got something wrong and once we are here with sealed mechanical components we can’t really do much to try and solve it. Sometimes that’s just how it is, but we never gave up all weekend and we kept trying to find solutions. Certainly, we don’t have the result we wanted to achieve, but we didn’t give up and that’s the most important thing. I'm looking forward to bouncing back on gravel in Portugal in only a couple of weeks.

“Thanks must go out to the organisers for such a well organised event, it is amazing to see how many fans came out to watch us. It made the weekend incredibly enjoyable, even if the stages were a challenge.”

Romet Jürgenson, 27th in WRC2, 53rd overall, said:

“The rally on Friday sadly ended quite quickly for us, we missed a whole day and after that it was quite difficult to get the confidence back for Saturday. But once we got out there it got better, and then I think especially on the Power Stage I felt quite ok. There’s a lot more to learn and a lot to improve on, but I think for our second Rally2 event on Tarmac we can be satisfied. It's just this kind of pure race track Tarmac, for me, is really new but it has been a really good experience for us.”

Josh McErlean, Retired Sunday, said:

“This island has produced many memories! It’s been difficult from the start, we began to make small progress over the three days with the whole package. It’s a big shame what happened today, a little too-ambitious pacenote meant we carried too much speed and ran wide into an armco. I’m sorry for the whole team for this mistake. We have learnt a lot about the car and my own driving this weekend. I look forward to getting back on the gravel now and into more familiar territory, everything should come a little more naturally and we can push on from here.”

Published 27 April 2025