McErlean suffers early exit from Rally Japan

Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy driver Josh McErlean will turn his attention to the final round of the FIA World Rally Championship season in Saudi Arabia later this month after a disappointing early exit from FORUM8 Rally Japan [6–9 November].

The Irishman, contesting his first full season in the top-flight M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1, had been aiming to build on his strong showing at the Central European Rally by applying those learnings to the unique challenge of Japan’s tight and technical asphalt roads.

In contrast to the wide, flowing roads of Central Europe, Japan’s stages are narrow, tree-lined, and unforgiving, with concrete walls, barriers, and rock-lined verges leaving no room for error. The focus for McErlean and co-driver Eoin Treacy was to build pace gradually across the weekend, gaining valuable mileage and experience on what is widely regarded as one of the toughest tarmac events on the WRC calendar.

After completing Thursday evening’s short opening test without issue, the crew began Friday’s first full day of stages facing damp and mossy conditions that made grip unpredictable. Like many of the front-running crews, McErlean struggled with persistent understeer, which hampered confidence on the often slick surface.

Unfortunately, on the second stage of the morning loop, a moment of understeer on a fast right-hander forced the Puma wide, resulting in contact with a tree and retirement from the event. Both McErlean and Treacy were checked by medical staff and given a clean bill of health shortly after the incident.

“It’s a really disappointing way to end a rally I was really looking forward to,” said McErlean. “We’d done our homework and knew how demanding Japan would be. The plan was to ease into it, but I just got caught out by the conditions and the lack of margin for error in these stages. It’s tough to take, especially when the team and our supporters have been behind us all the way, and as predicted, the fans have been amazing. I’m sorry to M-Sport, the whole team have worked so hard to get us to Japan, and this isn’t what we wanted at all.”

Despite the setback, McErlean remains positive and focused on finishing his debut Rally1 season strongly.

“The important thing is that both Eoin and I are okay,” he added. “We’ll take the lessons from Japan, reset quickly, and put all our focus on Saudi Arabia. It’s a brand-new rally for everyone, on very different terrain, and I’m really looking forward to that fresh challenge. It’s been a year of learning and development, and that continues right to the end.”

McErlean and Treacy will next tackle the inaugural Rally Saudi Arabia, which brings the 2025 FIA World Rally Championship season to a close on 26-29 November.

McErlean is backed by Woodland NI, Admore Air Conditioning, SDC Trailers, Hutchinson Engineering, McCormack Contracting Inc, Fastener Connections, Shamrock Building Systems and EC Framing Inc.