Jon Armstrong followed up his second place finish in the Junior World Rally Championship with a second in class finish on Rally Hungary this weekend.

Driving an M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally 4, the Kesh driver finished 23 second adrift of newly crowned JWRC champion Sami Pajari, but posted six fastest times throughout the weekend as the pair renewed their season long battle.

Jon struggled to adapt to the change of car and the style of the stages, and found himself 17 seconds behind Pajari after the first of Saturday’s stages, but he immediately hit back on stage three with his first fastest stage time of the weekend to claw his way back to sixth in the class.

He followed that up with fastest time on stages four six and seven to finish the first full day’s action in second place, having reduced his early deficit to Pajari to just seven seconds, and was only denied an overnight lead by a ten second road penalty following a late check in to a time control.

“It’s been good to show our speed without taking too many big risks,” said Jon at the end of day.

“I’m really happy with the performance of the M-Sport Poland Fiesta Rally4. It’s the first time I’ve driven the car against other manufacturers and didn’t know what to expect, it seems like it’s a proper package. We started today struggling with confidence, we didn’t have an amazing recce so our notes weren’t working too well. It’s been a matter of working hard throughout the day and updating the notes which has worked.”

The rally was effectively decided on the first stage of the last morning, when Jon’s sluggish start to the day saw him lose 18 seconds to his rival. Again he replied with a quickest stage time, but the Finnish driver was able to maintain his lead over the remaining stages with Jon settling for second in class and thirteenth overall.

“It’s been a really fun and challenging rally,” he said. “We improved throughout it and learned a lot about this style of road. It was great to be winning so many stages and an amazing result for MSport Poland. I’m really happy for the team.”