A Rally3 car will tackle Ireland’s notorious closed-road stages for the first time on next week’s West Cork Rally.
William Creighton is set to take his Ford Fiesta Rally3 to the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship’s second round ahead of his next World Rally Championship event in April.
The West Cork Rally will be Creighton’s third appearance in Rally3 machinery although his previous experience in the car is limited to snow.
The Junior WRC driver finished third in class on Rally Sweden, two weeks after making his Rally3 and snow debut on LBC-Ruschen Rally.
With Rally2 and Rally4 cars commonplace in the Irish Tarmac Championship, it will be interesting to see where Creighton’s Rally3 Fiesta slots into place on West Cork’s south coast asphalt stages.
The fastest Rally3 cars were less than two seconds per kilometre slower than their Rally2 equivalents on Rally Sweden. However, the disparity could be greater on Ireland’s bumpy sealed surface terrain.
“West Cork is a fantastic rally,” complimented Creighton. “It gives me two more days in the car ahead of my next Junior WRC round which is on tarmac in Croatia.
“There are things that I want to work on in terms of my driving, car set-up, and pacenotes.
“Fiestas have historically gone quite well on Irish tarmac, the chassis seems to suit it so hopefully the Rally3 car follows that trend.”
14 stages lie ahead of Creighton on the Clonakilty based rally. Four stages repeated once provide 110 kilometres of action on Saturday while two loops of three stages add a further 111 kilometres on Sunday.
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Photos courtesy of M-Sport / Junior WRC