Jon Armstrong celebrated being crowned FIA ERC3 Championship winner with a fifth victory of the season on Rally di Roma Capitale.

Armstrong has secured the title prior to the start on Friday morning and the result then saw his co-driver, Cameron Fair, named as co-driver champion.

Their triumph aboard an M-Sport Poland-run Ford Fiesta Rally3 Evo was largely a formality when they completed Saturday’s opening leg by 2min 07.5sec in front of Italian legend Paolo Andreucci, who was making his category debut in a Renault Clio Rally3 alongside co-driver Rudy Briani.

Having gone fastest in class on all 13 stages, Armstrong completed the Fiuggi Power Stage with a commanding advantage of 3min 51.3sec as Andreucci placed second.

After bitter disappointment in Junior WRC in the last two years, Armstrong is delighted to have finally landed a title.

“It is nice to have a title to my name as I didn’t have a title before this. I missed out on the Junior WRC the last two seasons by finishing second which was hard to take so it is nice that I have got that title to my name,” said Armstrong.

“I have competed with M-Sport Poland in Junior WRC the last two seasons and they tend to have a driver who does the European Championship in one of their cars as well so I got that opportunity this year in ERC3.

“It was a small field of drivers but crucially in every rally we were the fastest driver and we have won five out of five rallies so it has been a very successful year and I have really enjoyed being part of it. It was nice to have the opportunity and to do a good job of it and to win is fantastic. We are over the moon.”

Armstrong claimed the title by just starting in Rome but he wanted to go on and make it five wins out of five.

“In Rome we had competition from a local legend in Paolo Andreucci. He is getting on a bit but he is a legend in Italy and I didn’t know how fast I would be against him because he would have good experience of the roads and everything else.

“We wanted to win though and it was nice to be able to beat him and do it in that fashion. It was a good rally, the stages had good character with bumpy sections and some cuts to take here and there. It was really enjoyable to drive, so it was a nice place to claim the title.”

Another reason that Armstrong and co-driver Cameron Fair were keen to do well in Rome was to ensure that Fair landed the co-drivers title.

“It was a bit strange in that I was awarded the title just by starting the event but Cameron didn’t sit with me on the first rally so it meant that he didn’t claim the title at the same point and we had to finish with some good points in Rome for him to be crowned champion as well,” said the Kesh man.

“We had a job to do so we just focused as we always do and tick all the boxes and in the end we did a good rally and he was able to be crowned champion too. It was great to be able to celebrate together.”

There is still another rally to go in the championship in the Czech Republic and after that thoughts will turn to next year for Armstrong who is looking to step up in class.

“We’ll do one more rally in Czech Republic in two weeks time and after that I would like to work towards stepping up to the top class in ERC or somewhere else in a Rally2 car. We’ll just have to do the hard work now and see what sort of sponsorship we can put together for that. I did Sweden with the Rally2 car with MRF Tyres, who are definitely interested in working with me next year but that is only part of the equation and there is still a lot of work to be done to put the full package together.

“It is great the support I had from my local sponsors this year; C&M Motorsport Sales in Omagh, Seacon UK and Thrustmaster who have been a long time supporter of me and hopefully we can work together now and put something together for next year too.

“That will be the aim, to work on that and hopefully we can do it,” he added.