Jon Armstrong missed out on the Junior World Rally Championship title by a mere 17.5 seconds, after finishing second on the final round of the series in Greece.

The Kesh driver, along with navigator Brian Hoy, were one of four cars that went into the rally with a chance of claiming the top spot, but a puncture on stage seven proved fatal to his title hopes.

“It was frustrating to not get it, because I think we probably deserved it this time, but that’s the way rallying goes sometimes,” said Jon, who also lost out on the title on the final round the previous year.

“We gave it a good go and we couldn’t do much more in the end-up. The time we lost changing the puncture, we couldn’t make back. It’s frustrating, because we knew we did a really good event.”

On offer for the winner was one of the most valuable prizes in world rallying, worth in excess of £350,000, with the victor receiving four prize drives in WRC 2 with an M-Sport EcoBoost-powered Ford Fiesta Rally2 car, along with a full tyre package courtesy of Pirelli.

With double points on offer on the final round of the five-event series, it was a winner-takes-all scenario on a rally that has a reputation as a car breaker.

On the rough Greek stages, car preservation was always going to be key in deciding the outcome, and just three stages into the event the gruelling terrain had already claimed two of the four challengers, leaving a head-to-head title shootout between the Fermanagh crew and Robert Virves from Estonia.

After a brief Super Special Stage around the Olympic Stadium in Athens on Thursday evening, the rally started in earnest on Friday morning, and it was not long before the predicted carnage materialised.

“We knew that punctures were going to be an issue, and everyone had at least one puncture, and Sami Pajari had three, which put him out on Friday,” said Jon.

“We had two on Friday morning and I had to be careful not to get another one, so I was quite slow on one of the stages as I had no more spares.

“Then we had a tyre change zone and on the last stage on Friday, we got the puncture early on in the 23-kilometre stage and we had to stop and change it.”

The pair changed the wheel in record time, but Robert Virves’ lead had increased from three seconds to one minute 47 seconds as the Estonian emerged from the day’s six stages relatively unscathed.

With more of the hazardous conditions facing the crews on Saturday, Jon was still playing a waiting game as he looked to preserve the car and tyres.

“At the start of Saturday we weren’t going completely flat-out,” he revealed.

“We were just trying to see what happened, and there was still the opportunity for Robert to hit issues, but whenever we got into Saturday afternoon and he hadn’t had any issues, it was at that point we needed to start to take bigger chunks of time and I started pushing a bit more.”

An attack on Saturday’s final test saw Jon snatch back 25 seconds to reduce the gap to 53 seconds overnight, but with only three stages on the final day he knew his chances of victory were starting to recede.

Penultimate test

He hauled back 20 seconds on the day’s first stage, but Virves responded on the penultimate test to leave the gap at 36 seconds with just one stage remaining, and despite Jon posting time 18 seconds faster than his rival, it was not enough to claim the top spot as Virves took his first win of the season.

“I was trying to push without having any more issues ourselves, which we didn’t have, but unfortunately we didn’t have enough kilometres left to make the time back,” said Jon, who admitted he was just too far back at the start of the final day’s action.

“I didn’t think it was doable to catch him on time. We took a lot of time out of him on the first one, and that was good because we put more pressure on him.

“Then he did push more on the next stage, and he took a little bit back off us, but that was good too because it meant he was abusing the tyres and the car more, but we ran out of time.”

Jon’s championship challenge had got off to the perfect start with victory in Sweden, but after leading in both Croatia and Portugal he failed to convert his pace into points with only a fourth-place finish in Portugal to show for the two rallies, and he admits that probably cost him the title.

“Overall, it was a good season,” he reflected.

‘A bit of bad luck’

“We had a good rally in Sweden, and Greece was also a strong event for us, but we had a bit of bad luck on the other rallies mid-season and we lost points there.

“You need to try to be as consistent as you can and unfortunately we probably lost too many points mid-season, especially in Croatia.”

With the prize of a 2023 season in WRC2 snatched from him, Jon is now uncertain what the future holds.

“I don’t know what the next step is now,” he conceded. “I have to see what is possible, budget-wise, and take it from there. We will just have to wait and see what happens and hope for the best.”