John Warren and Ruthann O’Connor claimed an eleventh overall place finish on Saturday's Donegal Harvest Rally as they debuted the new McHale Rally team Fusion 4 Plus Fiesta Rally2.
The husband and wife team had been investigating the possible upgrade to the latest spec M-Sport Rally car following their recent eye-catching results in the older spec Fiesta R5 car, “We always wanted to try out the latest spec car and we had been eyeing up the one that IN Sport had after Niall and his team looked after us so well with the previous R5 car” said Ruthann, “and when it became available for Donegal we couldn’t miss the opportunity.”
After a short 20km test in the dry on Friday, the day before the event, John was delighted by the potential of the car. “It was a lot better than I expected it to be,” he revealed. “I got in it on Friday, and we got the seat adjusted and took it for a run, the car felt very good, and it definitely had more power. The chassis was a black and white sort of a difference. The R5 car was a pitching car, and it moved a lot on the suspension, but this car sits square all the time. I was getting a false feeling at first under breaking due to the car not pitching forward but when I got tuned into the weight difference with the Rally2 being a lot lighter than the R5 and notice how late you could brake because of this, it felt good, very good!
“Standing still means going backwards, and this is especially true in Motorsport” added Ruthann “and that’s why in getting to grips with the new Rally2 we knew we could apply the experience we gained from the R5 car and optimize every detail”.
John’s first stage on Saturday yielded a 15th fastest time overall but he was hampered by the heavens opening over Letterkenny for the morning loop, but despite this the South Mayo crew were happy with the stage times they were setting as they continued to adapt to the new car and a new driving style.
“It was a challenging rally,” they both admitted. “We made some changes over the three loops, but the car was working very well. It was tricky with the wet conditions, but it takes time to learn where to push and where not to, but I was not that far away” beamed Warren.
“I can’t compare to other drivers yet because they are much longer than me in those cars, but I am happy, we brought the Fusion 4 Plus Fiesta home in 11th place from over 160 cars that started the event”
Four was certainly the magic number in the Donegal Harvest Rally the final and deciding round of the Triton Showers National Rally Championship as Monaghan’s Josh Moffett with Keith Moriarty on the notes in a Hyundai i20 R5 netted an unprecedented fourth national rally championship victory and Derry’s Callum Devine with Noel O’Sullivan alongside in a Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 won the rally for a fourth successive time.
To keep up to date with the McHale Rally team and check out some of the amazing footage from their events follow ‘McHale Rallying’ on TikTok
