Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy driver William Creighton recorded the best WRC2 result of his career at Tet Rally Lavia [18-21 July] last weekend, by taking fifth place in the fiercely contested WRC2 category.
Creighton and co-driver Liam Regan would contest their first high-speed gravel rally in Rally2 machinery and piloting their M-Sport Ford Fiesta Rally2, the pairing adapted impeccably to the unique Latvian stages.
Keeping a consistently strong pace throughout each passing stage, and punching in some impressive times across the weekend, the Moira driver worked his way up the leaderboard throughout the four-day event, to claim a career-best WRC2 result and with it, finishing 16th overall against some of the best drivers in the world.
“I’m delighted with that result and taking fifth in WRC2 on such a specialist event is a real achievement,” said an elated Creighton.
“It was never going to be easy to go from Sardina, which was a technical and slow gravel event, to the ultra-high speeds found in Latvia but we felt comfortable from the outset and it gave us enough confidence to sustain a strong pace throughout the weekend. That really reaped rewards in terms of our finishing position.”
Creighton opened his Latvian account with seventh in WRC2 through Thursday night’s super special stage at the Bikernieki racetrack, but it was Friday’s leg that tested crews with the rapid gravel stages favouring the brave. Despite his relative inexperience on these types of stages, he was troubling many drivers used to the dynamic of the roads and would end the first full day in sixth in WRC2.
His impressive consistency continued throughout Saturday’s leg, and by the repeat loop in the afternoon, he had worked his way into fifth spot. With just four stages on Sunday, Creighton maintained his impeccable speed and with the world watching on thanks to being featured in the Wolf Power Stage proceedings live on Rally.TV, he sealed his position and also claimed fourth in the WRC2 Challenger category to boot.
“It has been an enjoyable weekend and the sensation of driving the Fiesta Rally2 across those stages was pretty special. We settled in quickly which is a testament to all the hard work we have been putting in behind the scenes and working with the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy to cope with the high speeds of Latvia. That will also carry forward to Finland which is just a few weeks away.”
“We now head into another busy period as we continue our WRC2 season in Finland and then we pick up our British Rally Championship campaign with the Grampian in Scotland, but the confidence levels are high and that’s important on the type of rallies we have coming up.
“A big thank you to all the kind words of support and encouragement that we have received this week. Thanks, must also go to the Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy and the M-Sport team for all their assistance recently, a lot of hard work was put in by everyone before the event so it’s nice to go some way to reward them with such a positive result.”
