Josh McErlean says “looking at the entry list shows our performance was impressive” after being forced to retire from third position late on in the Cambrian Rally.
McErlean made his first British Rally Championship appearance in an R5 car on the Welsh event and had been running in the podium positions before he hit a rock on the penultimate stage and cruelly went no further as a result.
But the 2019 Motorsport Ireland Billy Coleman award winner was adamant to take the positives away from the first round of the year and said: “Of course, I’m really disappointed with how it turned out. I could spend hours analysing that impact, but I need to really focus on the positives from the weekend and there are plenty of those.”
“You only have to look at the entry list to see that our performance was impressive and that’s important to me. I`m more determined than ever to do well in West Cork next month.”
The Irishman also admitted that even he was staggered by the position he was in on the leaderboard before the incident and added: “We had treated the morning as a learning exercise to get dialled into the car and just take everything a stage by stage, so I was a little surprised to be in the top six after the first two stages.”
“We really had everything hooked up in the long one and it felt great, but we were still surprised to be third overall after that, especially as I felt there was more left. I’m very pleased with our performance all day, to be honest”.
Prior to the event, McErlean did have some experience of the i20 after competing on Wales Rally GB last year following his win in the 2019 Junior BRC, as well as also completing a pre-season test with Hyundai in France earlier this year.
Round two of the 2020 British Rally Championship, the West Cork Rally, takes place on March 14/15.
