WRC, Sportrik Media - Jon Armstrong continued to demonstrate competitive pace for M-Sport Ford during the Safari Rally Kenya 2026, despite suffering a technical setback during Friday’s stages.
The Northern Irish driver once again attracted praise from team principal Richard Millener. Competing in only his third rally in the Ford Puma Rally1, Armstrong has consistently delivered performance levels beyond the team’s early expectations.
His progress had already been visible earlier this season. Armstrong briefly ran as high as third overall at the Rallye Monte Carlo and followed that with a strong showing at Rally Sweden, where he set a top-four stage time before finishing eighth overall.
The demanding terrain of Kenya, however, presented a different challenge. The rough African stages eventually caught out the #95 Puma Rally1 late on Friday when Armstrong damaged a compression strut and rear driveshaft. Together with co-driver Shane Byrne, he was forced to stop during a stage and spend approximately 24 minutes repairing the suspension before continuing.
Millener emphasized that Armstrong’s raw speed remains a strong positive signal for the team’s development program.
“We sit there watching the stages expecting Jon to be fighting Thierry Neuville, Adrien Fourmaux, Sami Pajari and Takamoto Katsuta — and he is. When you remember he has probably only completed around 35 stages in a Rally1 car, it’s quite incredible,” Millener told DirtFish.
Before the incident occurred, Armstrong had been running eighth overall in the rally standings, ahead of Esapekka Lappi and just 4.3 seconds behind Adrien Fourmaux. A puncture during the second pass of the Geothermal stage preceded the suspension damage that followed after a slight contact with a bank.
Despite losing more than 20 minutes, Millener highlighted the importance of such moments in a driver’s learning process at the top level of the FIA World Rally Championship.
“His approach is fantastic. They remain very sensible and level-headed. There is still experience to gain, especially in avoiding punctures like the very top drivers do,” Millener explained.
M-Sport confirmed that both Armstrong and teammate Josh McErlean would return to action for the following leg of the rally. McErlean had also encountered mechanical trouble earlier after the gearbox casing on his Puma cracked during the Kedong stage.
For M-Sport, Armstrong’s pace across his first three rallies in a Rally1 car has already demonstrated promising long-term potential as he competes directly against rivals from Hyundai and Toyota in the 2026 WRC season.
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