Creighton’s speedy spring homecoming tour
Three rallies, three podiums – William Creighton has made a real statement during his homecoming tour of British and Irish rallies this Spring.
The 2023 Junior World Rally Champion ventured into the merciless world of Rally2 competition this season. A category arguably more competitive than WRC’s Rally1 benchmark, jumping into WRC2 isn’t for the faint-hearted.
With a tonne of talented, and by no means inexperienced, rally drivers it is easy to get lost among WRC2’s ocean of entrants.
Creighton started his season on Rally Sweden, an event he seized his Junior WRC advantage on 12 months earlier. This year was different, though. A strong performance on his WRC2 debut was rewarded with a 14th-place finish.
The Moira man’s target for his maiden WRC2 campaign is solely to gain experience and improve his Rally2 pace. Modern-day rallying may all be about seconds per kilometre and seat time but there is something to be said about grabbing a stand-out result.
A stand-out result… well thanks to a set of stunning drives on the West Cork Rally, North West Stages, and Severn Valley Stages Creighton now has three of them.
“I was happy to get the podium in West Cork,” began M-Sport’s Ford Fiesta Rally2 pilot. “To be honest I would have been happy with a finish anywhere in the top five.
“The level of competition in the Irish Tarmac Championship is really high but I still wanted to get a good result there.
“It was our first tarmac rally in the Fiesta but we had experience of the event and driving on Ireland’s stages.
“That was the event that I felt like I should have been getting a good result on.”
March’s West Cork Rally wasn’t just any Irish Tarmac event. It was a three-day, 18-stage spectacular that would put most non-WRC events to shame.
Tough tarmac tests were made even more daunting when the heavens opened above Ireland’s south-west coastline. But the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy driver mastered his treacherous Irish homecoming to finish third behind multiple British Rally Champions Keith Cronin and Matt Edwards. He even snuck in three stage wins for good measure.
Creighton was confident and he had every right to be.
Next up was a trip to BRC’s North West Stages opener. The Ulsterman went one better on the asphalt stages to finish runner-up to European Rally Champion Chris Ingram. A round two follow-up on Welsh gravel resulted in another second-place finish, this time behind local ace Osian Pryce.
“The BRC is really strong this year with a lot of top crews,” Creighton described. “I genuinely didn’t expect to get into the rhythm that we did so early on, especially on the Severn Valley Stages.
“It had been a while since I had driven on gravel and this was my first gravel rally in the UK driving a four-wheel-drive car.
“When you are up against guys like Osian, Keith, and Chris I thought it was going to be a case of trying to bridge the gap to their pace.
“I was really happy to be on the pace from the very start which gave us good confidence.
“We just stepped into the Fiesta, after a short test, and it felt very comfortable straightaway. When it is like that those stages in Wales are a joy to drive.”
While Creighton’s WRC2 campaign offers the ultimate rally challenge, his dabble in British and Irish events wasn’t without its danger.
Up against well-versed Rally2 runners like Callum Devine, Keith Cronin, and Josh Moffett – Creighton could easily have finished West Cork’s 18 stages someway adrift of Ireland’s usual suspects. The same goes for his BRC visits. Putting yourself against home rivals as a Junior World Champion comes with serious expectations, a multitude of onlookers, and a few nay-sayers.
Creighton’s speed, professionalism, and final results unanimously proved to each stage-side expert that he is the real deal.
The fact that he “had fun” in the high-pressure environment shows exactly the level he is now operating at.
“I feel really positive after the results that we have had.
“There was definitely a bit of pressure coming back to the rallies at home but once Liam and I got into a nice rhythm on each event we had so much fun.
“It was so nice to be back competing at home in West Cork and then to get strong results in BRC against top competition.”
Podium finishes, stage wins, and close competition with end-of-stage friends are the fun bits. But Creighton’s charge up rallying’s lengthy ladder faces an altogether different prospect this weekend on Croatia Rally.
He mightn’t be aiming for his fourth podium finish in a row but what his recent outings have shown is that each world rally Creighton completes is giving him an extra edge to his rally driving abilities.
“The experience that we have gained from these three events will be key,” said Creighton. “We have squeezed a lot into a short period of time.
“We are always going to be inexperienced compared to the guys we are up against in WRC2 but that is just the place we are in in our WRC journey.
“What the team has managed to do to prepare ourselves for this event has been fantastic.
“I must say a big thank you to M-Sport and the MI Rally Academy for putting everything in place for us to do that.
“We have got three good results in the UK and Ireland but moving into WRC we have to be realistic as to where we are in that journey.
“It is just a case of continuing to improve and close the gap to the top guys.
“Croatia is such a tricky rally, it is always difficult to get the rally right. The weather looks unsettled for this weekend so it could be another tricky event.
“We are in a positive mindset coming off the back of some strong results and we’ll have a pre-event test before Croatia Rally to try to get back into the swing of things on Croatia’s slippery tarmac stages.”
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Photos courtesy of British Rally Championship
