Despite a weekend defined by unpredictable surface conditions and high puncture risk, the team leaves Rijeka with several fastest split times, and a clear indication of the Ford Puma and Fiesta’s competitive pace. A few highlights to the weekend would be Armstrong and Byrne securing another six championship points on Super Sunday with a third-place finish in the Powerstage and third overall in the day's standings and Jurgenson and Oja securing two overall stage wins in WRC2.

FINAL CLASSIFICATIONS

RC1

15th: Josh McErlean / Eoin Treacy

32nd: Jon Armstrong / Shane Byrne

RC2

13th: Romet Jürgenson / Siim Oja, 10th O/A WRC2

41st: Mille Johansson / Johan Grönvall, 17th WRC2

EVENT SUMMARY

M-Sport started the event by opting for a bold and proactive tyre strategy, selecting a predominantly soft compound compared to the other teams who favoured a harder tyre package. The decision paid early dividends, with Jon Armstrong delivering the fastest opening split of the event, and finishing the first test third overall.

Armstrong would continue this strong start over the whole weekend, even getting close to his first first WRC stage win, losing out by an incredible 0.1 seconds.

The atmosphere was made even more special for the Rally1 crews by the empowering home fan support; a sea of Irish flags and cheers present across the stages and service park.

Richard Millener, M-Sport Ford Team Principal, said: “It’s been a really exciting rally for us, and it’s fantastic to see the pace John and Shayne have shown throughout the entire weekend. To watch them fighting at the top of the stage time sheets against far more experienced Rally1 crews and to come away with third overall in the Power Stage and Super Sunday points, is an outstanding achievement.

Josh and Eoin had a more challenging event, but the progress he’s made on tarmac compared to last year is clear to see. That’s a big positive for us moving forward.

With the Canary Islands coming up in just a week’s time, we’re in a strong position and I am very hopeful of a good fight there.

In WRC2 Romet and Mille both showed strong pace across the weekend, even if punctures cost them the overall positions. Again, there are a lot of positives to take away from their performances.

One of the key highlights this weekend has been demonstrating the pace of both the Puma and Fiesta against the competition. It’s clear we have the equipment capable of fighting for top overall results and I can't wait to get to the next events to continue what has been an incredibly positive weekend."

CREW SUMMARIES

Jon Armstrong / Shane Byrne (#95)

Armstrong utilised a bold soft-tyre strategy on Friday morning to set blistering opening splits and challenge the overall leaders.

SS2 saw Armstrong setting the fastest time up until the midpoint of the 14km stage, before a tyre delamination cost him around 30 seconds as he was forced to limp to the end of the test. Despite this setback, his pace was clear to see.

Sadly an over optimistic pacenote in SS4 saw Jon hit a kerb which would terminally damage the suspension forcing a Friday retirement.

Returning on Saturday the Irish pairing would set multiple second-fastest stage times. Finishing a mere 0.1s and 0.2s off the stage wins in SS3 and SS15 respectively.

Armstrong spent the final day in a direct battle with the championship regulars, proving his ability with every stage and impressing the team and fans with his strongest Rally1 performance to date.

Jon Armstrong, 32nd overall, said: “I’m really happy with the pace we showed this weekend. It’s been a strong and consistent performance, and it’s great to come away with P3 on the power stage and pick up some valuable extra points.

“We’re continuing to learn a lot about the car in these conditions, which will be important heading into Gran Canaria. There’s still more to come from us, but it’s a solid step forward and we’ll keep pushing to build on this momentum.”

Josh McErlean / Eoin Treacy (#55)

The event would be the first time McErlean had experienced the tricky Croatian roads, despite this, Josh comfortably held 5th overall throughout most of Friday dispute the dirty road conditions from his later starting position. However, a puncture on Stage 7 which he would need to stop and change would see him drop down the running order.

Determined to climb back up the leaderboard on Saturday, it would be another mentally challenging day.

A small electrical fire on Stage 10 would see him drop a further seven minutes. This would be followed by punctures on Stages 13 and 14, but he would be able to nurse the car through without stopping.

Demonstrating incredible composure despite all these pressures, Josh showed a fantastic ‘never-quit’ attitude and ensured the car reached the end of each day, and the event, safely.

Taking away the times on the stages where he was hampered, his result here was a big step forward in tarmac pace compared to 2025 and this bodes well for him and Eoin heading into the Canaries rally in only a week’s time,

Josh McErlean, 15th overall said: “Croatia was a really demanding rally and, overall, it’s been quite a dramatic weekend for us. There are definitely positives to take though, our tarmac pace has improved and I’m starting to feel more comfortable and confident in the car on this surface. Of course, we still want to put a full clean rally together, but the speed is coming which is encouraging. Now the focus is on resetting, learning from this weekend, and carrying that progress into Canaries.”

Romet Jürgenson / Siim Oja (#32)

Returning to the event after his ERC appearance last year, Jurgenson and Oja were keen to use their knowledge to their advantage.

After a steady start to SS1, Jürgenson would stun the WRC2 field taking the fastest overall stage time, beating the rest of the WRC2 category by over 4 seconds.

Devastatingly, a rear-left puncture in SS5 costing him his fight for the lead, he would respond by winning SS6 outright, a repeat of SS2, taking the double win on this test.

Throughout the rest of the weekend he would place inside the top three of the WRC2 timings five times, even when running on roads that were heavily compromised by mud and debris.

The Estonian was forced to manage numerous punctures on Saturday, but did so with intelligence, avoiding having to stop mid-stage and minimising time loss.

A clean final day on Sunday, where he concentrated on setup options for Rally Canaries would see him end the event high in confidence and with a good amount of new knowledge gained.

Romet Jürgenson, 13th overall said: “From a performance point of view, the rally was really decent, I have to say. Already on Friday we showed good speed with two stage wins, and on Saturday when everything clicked we were consistently inside the top three, fighting with the front guys.

It’s a shame about the punctures, obviously we would have liked to avoid them—but sometimes the luck just isn’t there, and this time it wasn’t. Overall, the season has been difficult in terms of fortune, but at least now we’ve shown that we belong at this level.

The car development has also brought us much closer to the top crews, and we’re clearly in that group now, which is really positive. Now we move on to the Canaries!”

Mille Johansson / Johan Grönvall (#34)

Mille embarked on his second event in the Fiesta Rally2 with M-Sport, focusing on building confidence and learnings from the wider M-Sport team.

He suffered two punctures within the first two stages, which depleted his spare tyre allocation and forced an early Friday retirement.

Despite the limited mileage, he gained crucial insights into tyre management and the technical demands of the Croatian stages.

The 2025 Junior WRC winner, worked closely with the M-Sport engineers to further refine his driving style for asphalt, shown with a fourth quickest WRC2 time on the final stage of the event.

Mille now shifts his attention to the next round at Rally de Portugal, aiming to apply the lessons learned from this challenging Croatia Rally.

Mille Johansson, 41st overall said: "For us it didn’t start very well with two punctures on the first two stages. And with only one spare wheel we had to retire. Restarted again on Saturday and the feeling in the car got better for every stage in these challenging conditions. Sunday was a positive day comparing to the front runners where we got a lot closer on the times."