Junior WRC champion Creighton gets to grips with prize-drive Fiesta

Creighton’s capture of last year’s FIA Junior WRC title earned him a huge prize package consisting of four arrive-and-drive outings on European rounds of the WRC in one of M-Sport’s Ford Fiesta Rally2 cars, plus tyre support from Pirelli.

The Irishman has chosen Rally Sweden, an event he won while driving an M-Sport Poland-built Fiesta Rally3 Evo in Junior WRC last year, as his first round of the season. In preparation, he and co-driver Liam Regan will tackle the Lima Rally on Saturday (10 February) to get acclimatised to the car on snow.

“It’s a great opportunity for me to just get some seat time in the Fiesta Rally2 and get back into the swing of driving on snow with studded tyres,” Creighton told WRC.com. “Obviously, we’ve got good experience from Sweden in previous years, but it’s going to be quite different now as we step up to the WRC2 category.

“I’ve driven the Fiesta [Rally2] a little bit on the test track at M-Sport’s headquarters, so it’s been nice to see how everything works and to gain a bit of experience, but obviously it’s going to be quite different when we hit the stages in Sweden.”

M-Sport has invested heavily in the development of its Fiesta Rally2 and implemented a raft of technical upgrades over the course of the 2023 season. Adrien Fourmaux won last year’s British Rally Championship with the car while, more recently, Keith Cronin steered one to victory in the Galway International Rally in Ireland at the weekend.

“Over the last 12 months, they’ve done a lot of work on the car,” Creighton confirmed. “It’s evident to see the results it’s been achieving and, even in Ireland now, winning in Galway is really positive.

“All the work the team is putting in is paying off, and I’m really looking forward to getting into the car and trying to get to grips with it.”