25-04-2025
McErlean and Treacy struggle with oversteer on opening day at Rally Islas Canarias
Struggling with understeer, the Irish crew of Josh McErlean and Eoin Treacy finished outside the top ten on the opening day of Rally Islas Canarias, round four of the World Rally Championship. The Kilrea/Killeagh pairing are 12th overall. The Toyota GR outfit have an impressive lock-out of the top five places with Finland's Kalle Rovanpera finding form and pace to lead team mate Sebastien Ogier by 26.8s with championship leader Elfyn Evans a further 9.6s behind in third after the day's six stages.
Rovanpera imposed his authority from the very start and with three stage wins on the morning loop he arrived at the Las Palmas service park with a lead of 17.8s from Ogier, who was on his first WR event since his Monte Carlo victory with Evans a further 2.4s behind in third. Rally leader Rovanpera admitted he couldn't get the tyres to work on the third stage where his Toyota Yaris had some understeer, Ogier's tyres had too much pressure on the opening stage but he moved ahead of Evans on the next stage.
Hyundai's Adrien Fourmaux, 34.2s off top spot in fourth place interrupted the Toyota dominance as Sami Pajari and Takamoto Katsuta and his Irish co-driver Aaron Johnson placed fifth and sixth for the Japanese team. Set-up issues with their Hyundai i20 N Rally1 saw Ott Tanak and reigning champion Thierry Neuville languish in seventh and eighth respectively.
Luxemburg driver Gregoire Munster (ninth) was best of the M-Sport Ford team, however, he too suffered with understeer as did McErlean, who was eleventh. Following his tenth place on SS1 (Valsequillo) the longest stage of the rally at 26.32km, McErlean said, "We struggled a bit towards the end with some precision. (It's) so easy to miss a braking point or a note, everything is happening so much." The Wexford/Waterford crew of Eamonn Boland/MJ Morrissey (Ford Fiesta Rally2) were 28th in the RC2 category.
On the repeat loop, Tanak continued his unrelenting pace to complete the full set of fastest stage times. McErlean improved on all his previous stage times. "It's been nice team work today. Greg (Gregoire Munster) has been a big help today to learn off. Two more days of trying to learn this beast and these roads. Obviously, the times haven't been great, but it's been a crazy experience just to drive these roads. I didn't realise that there were so many people in this country, never mind fans." There are seven stages today (Saturday) and six on Sunday.
Rally Islas Canarias (Round 4, World Rally Championship) Gran Canaria: 1. K. Rovanpera/J. Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)1h. 10m. 31.8s; 2. S. Ogier/V. Landais (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)+26.8s; 3. E. Evans/S. Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)+36.4s; 4. S. Pajari/M. Salminen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)+55.3s; 5. T. Katsuta/A. Johnston (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1)+1m. 06.0s; 6. T. Neuville/M. Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1)+1m. 13.3s; 7. O. Tanak/M Jarveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally)+1m. 14.1s; 8. A. Fourmaux/A. Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1)+1m. 14.8s; 9. G. Munster/L. Louka (Ford Puma Rally1)+2m. 11.1s; 10. Y. Rossel/A. Dunand (Citroen C3 Rally2)+2m. 50.7s; 11. A. Cachon/B. Rozada (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2)+3m. 09.4s; 12. J. McErlean/E. Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1)+3m. 16.2s.
