WRC, Sportrik Media – Josh McErlean enters the 2026 World Rally Championship season in one of the most scrutinised positions in the M-Sport Ford structure, no longer as a rookie but as the most experienced driver in the team’s Rally1 programme.
After completing his first full WRC campaign in 2025, McErlean now finds himself in the role that Grégoire Munster occupied last season, when every stage time was placed under the microscope. This year, the pressure has reversed, with Jon Armstrong stepping up into Rally1 for the first time while McErlean becomes the benchmark inside the garage of the Ford Puma Rally1 squad.
Despite that shift, McErlean insists 2026 is not about external pressure but about self-imposed standards. Having watched Munster endure heavy criticism in his sophomore year, McErlean believes that focusing on internal development rather than comparisons with team-mates is the only way to generate consistent performance in modern WRC, where marginal confidence swings can translate directly into stage time.
Within M-Sport, the absence of a formal number-one driver further reinforces that mindset. While Armstrong brings broader international rallying experience, McErlean now holds the advantage in Rally1 mileage, having completed more than 40 WRC starts, making him the technical reference point as the team develops its 2026 package.
McErlean’s priority for the new season is to raise both his speed and consistency, acknowledging that today’s WRC rarely rewards conservative strategies. With modern cars far more reliable and the field extremely competitive, simply waiting for others to falter is no longer a viable path to strong results; drivers must commit to performance from the opening stages while managing risk with precision.
He points to the aggressive benchmark set by Mārtiņš Sesks as an example of how outright intent can define a rally, even when the final result does not fully reflect the underlying pace. For McErlean, that mentality represents the level required to operate at the sharp end of the championship.
The Irishman also reflects on the psychological difference between a full-season driver and those with limited opportunities. With 14 rallies on the 2025 calendar, he admits there were moments when caution was prioritised to protect long-term prospects. In 2026, with his position now established, he plans to strike a more aggressive balance between attack and control.
Continuity strengthens his position as well, with co-driver Eoin Treacy retained and only one unfamiliar event on the calendar. That stability contrasts sharply with early 2025, when McErlean was still acclimatising to life at the top level alongside established stars such as Thierry Neuville, Sébastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanperä.
Having now found his feet in Rally1, McErlean knows the next step is turning familiarity into results. As the 2026 season unfolds, the only rival he truly measures himself against is his own performance ceiling — a defining challenge in the evolving landscape of the World Rally Championship, followed closely by Sportrik Media at https://sportrik.com.
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