McErlean: It’s a different Josh taking on WRC2 in 2023

January 17, 2023 Rallyinsight

Later this week, Kilrea’s Josh McErlean embarks on his second WRC2 campaign – on the one-of-a-kind stages of Rally Monte-Carlo.

Partnered with John Rowan, the Ulster-based duo face the tough task of rivalling some of the World Rally Championship’s best on the world’s riskiest roads.

Over 25 crews have entered Rally Monte-Carlo’s WRC2 category while McErlean will compete against 12 others in WRC2 Challenger, a new class replacing WRC2 Junior.

Speaking to Rally Insight ahead of the 2023 season, the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy member was buzzing to start his latest campaign by debuting in Monte-Carlo.

McErlean’s WRC2 assault in 2022 was hindered by retirements throughout the tough conditions posed by rallying’s world championship rounds. From a Portuguese steering issue to a wet and wild podium finish without a windscreen in Estonia, the 23-year-old fought through the storms to help secure a co-drivers’ title for James Fulton.

With a year’s WRC experience under his belt, McErlean is ready to flip those last season’s hard lessons to rally rewards in ‘23.

“Last year was a big step for me,” described McErlean. “It was my first full WRC2 campaign and the competition was the highest it has ever been with top drivers and big teams.

“It was difficult to match these guys from the beginning in Sweden.

“We had to take a step back to learn the process. You could say we had to go slower to understand how to go faster.

“There were points in the season when we showed the pace and we had a lot of fastest split times. We can take positives from this and of course, winning a stage overall in Portugal was an incredible achievement.

“It was a season full of highs but there were also more lows than I had hoped for as well. For example, in Ypres, we were showing good pace to fight at the top when we crashed out. It was a driver error but we have to learn and bounce back from these moments.”

Ex-Rally1 hotshots Adrien Fourmaux and Oliver Solberg lead the way in Rally Monte-Carlo’s Rally2 runners. France’s 2021 WRC3 champion Yohan Rossel and reigning Belgian Rally Champion Stephane Lefebvre further the Rally2 benchmark on the southern Alps.

While McErlean won’t bring his PCRS Hyundai i20 Rally2 to Sweden next month, he’ll have his eyes on how an influx of Nordic challengers perform on their first WRC2 rounds of the year. Ole Christian Veiby, Emil Lindholm, Teemu Suninen, and Jari Huttunen return to WRC2 lengthening the list of potential champions to double digits.

“The championship is going to be very competitive again,” recognised McErlean. “But we have to do our own thing, focus on our own driving, and hopefully the rest will come.

“We know areas to improve and we know what needs to happen.

“We have the team and we have the car so I have no doubt that we can fight at the front more consistently this year.

“It is you and the road, you can’t overcomplicate the situation. You can break it down into different parts to improve but it is still rallying, going from A to B in the quickest way possible.

“I learned a lot last year with a lot of big firsts in the rallies we did. There wasn’t much time in between to digest the information as much as I would have liked.

“You could say it is a different Josh going into 2023. I have more self-belief heading into this year and I’m really looking forward to it.”

Rally Monte-Carlo gets underway with the famous Col de Turini test at 19:05 GMT on Thursday 19th January.

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