Jon Armstrong opened up his European Rally Championship challenge with an eighth-placed finish on Rally Hungary. 

The Kesh driver, making his first appearance since announcing his factory-supported drive with M-Sport in a Rally2 Ford Fiesta, adapted quickly to his new car to put together a trouble-free run on his way to a top-10 finish on the gravel roads of the series opener.

“Top 10 was sort of the target so we were pretty happy with it,” said Jon.

“It was a solid result. We had a clean run, and it’s nice to get a top 10 and be at the finish of a demanding rally.

"There was no big pressure on us to do anything special, but we still needed to show we were capable of being on a good pace and to show the car is strong and able get through without any big trouble.

"On Sunday everyone was struggling with how many tyres they had left, and we had to use used tyres for the last loop, so we lost a bit of performance there. The guy in front of us went out on new tyres and I think we probably could have caught him had we got the strategy a bit better, but the strategy kept us out of trouble. It was just a bit more conservative.”

Armstrong survived a brush with a concrete block on Friday night’s opening spectator stage to set the eleventh fastest time, and he moved into the top ten on the first Saturday stage. He held onto that position at the end of the day, despite an overshoot on the penultimate test, and then set the seventh fastest time on Sunday’s first stage to close the gap to those in front.

Stage 10 saw him move up to ninth, and he rounded off the rally with a pair of fifth-fastest times to secure eighth.

“It was a very tough rally,” he conceded.

“There were a lot of rough sections and in places, it was a bit like Kenya and Greece. On the recce in a normal car, you feel everything a bit more, but when you get there with the modern Rally2 car it can soak up everything and it was amazing how much speed you could carry over the rough terrain. There wasn’t that much that you had to conserve, it was more about avoiding hitting anything that was sticking out and avoiding punctures. Some of the others did break suspension components, but it shows the Ford is a good strong car.”

Armstrong won the Rally3 European Championship last season, but he admits he still has some learning to do in the Rally2 category: “I think I will learn a lot over the next couple of rallies, and hopefully build upon where we are at,” he said.

“At the weekend I was getting closer and closer to the front runners, and we had a couple of good stage times. It’s just about learning the capabilities of the car in that Rally2 class and what the cars can do, and the grip you have, and what the driving style is to maximise everything. The suspension travel is more, so the car moves around more underneath you.

"It’s about using that to your benefit to carry speed into the corners, so it’s a bit different, but the basics are very similar. Rally3 has been a good stepping stone, but everything is just faster and you have to get used to the speed you can carry.

"I was definitely coming along. We had a really good Sunday, especially on the morning loop when we were taking a lot of time out of the guys in front of us.”

The championship now moves from gravel to tarmac, with the next round in Gran Canaria running from May 2-4.

Closer to home, Shane McGirr grabbed his second two-wheel drive victory of the season when he took his Lada to seventh overall on the Carrick-On-Suir Forestry rally.

The Fivemiletown driver took an early two-second lead after the first stage, and although Hugh McQuaid edged past him on the next test, the Escort driver retired on stage three as McGirr pulled clear of the rest of two-wheel drive contenders to win by 47 seconds.