Keith Cronin will debut his new Citroën C3 Rally 2 at the East Riding Stages Rally in Yorkshire this weekend, as he launches another bid to secure five British Rally Championship titles.
The 2024 Irish Tarmac Champion was also in-line for the BRC crown last season, but was denied the honour of equally Jimmy McRae’s five titles on the final round.
Cronin’s 2025 campaign had been due to commence with the Galway International Rally at the start of this month, before the Tarmac Championship opener fell victim to the effects of Storm Éowyn.
“It would have been good to have had our first run out in the new car in Ireland, two days in Galway would have taught us a lot about it before we go to the East Riding Stages, even though the road surfaces will be quite different in Yorkshire. Hopefully Galway will get to run later in the year,” said Cronin.
“It means that our learning curve may be a bit steeper on Sunday, but that said, all the Rally 2 cars are built to fairly tight regulations, there aren’t huge differences between them. We’ll have done a couple of tests, plus Tom Gahan Motorsport will have experience of the set-up options for running the C3 on Michelin Tyres. I’m not setting any targets, but it would be important to get a good result this weekend if we’re to have a chance of landing the British title at the end of the year.
We had a dreadful start to the BRC in 2024, the first two events didn’t go well at all, and we never recovered from it, so I’d be hoping that we’d get off on a better footing this time. We’ll take it round by round and see how it all works out.”
The Jim Clark victory was the highlight of Cronin’s British exploits over the course of last year, but a roll on Rali Ceredigion in September scuppered any chance of him landing a record-equalling fifth BRC title.
Cronin is not the only one of the leading BRC contenders in new machinery for 2025. With outgoing champion, Chris Ingram, moving on to a programme of international events, his place in the MEM Toyota team is taken by last year’s runner-up, Will Creighton. Meirion Evans remains in the second MEM Yaris, while Junior World Champion, Romet Jurgenson of Estonia, takes the seat vacated by Crieghton at M-Sport Ford.
“It’ll be hard to beat Will in the Toyota, he was on the top pace all last year, and of course it’s the car that won the championship with Chris,” said Cronin. “We’re all interested to see how Jürgenson gets on, he’s the Junior World Champion, and he was selected as the FIA Rally Star Europe winner a couple of years before that. There will be others in the running too. Every British title is hard earned for whoever wins it out, and this year will be no different.”
Keith Cronin and Mikie Galvin are supported by M Group of Companies, Shane Casey Electrical Services, Michelin Tyres, Cronin’s Centra (Ballylickey, Union Hall, Leap,
