Real rally star Jon on top of his game to win world title... driving a PlayStation
FROM real-life rallying to a virtual world title on a PlayStation — that’s the remarkable journey Jon Armstrong has made in the past year.
Twelve months ago he was competing for real in the German round of the World Rally Championship.
At the weekend he was back in the Mosel region again, only this time as a finalist in the Esport World Championship.
And he is heading home to Fermanagh as the champion and the proud owner of the top prize, a new Hyundai i20 Coupe presented by the sponsors.
The 24-year-old from Kesh, who was runner-up in the Northern Ireland junior rally championship in 2015, made two impressive appearances in the world championship last season, including Rally Germany, as his prize for his successes in the 2016 Drive DMACK Trophy series.
But rallying is an expensive business and this season he has been on the sidelines, turning
his attention to competing on his PlayStation against gamers from all around the world over virtual world championship stages from Monte Carlo to Mexico. Armstrong was in third place after 13 rounds of the regular season and was one of eight drivers invited to Germany for the finale on Saturday.
There he topped the qualifying competition to go through to the grand final, which was held in rally service park and streamed live on the WRC website.
But Armstrong came close to blowing it.
After winning the opening stage, he comfortably led for the majority of the second until within half-a-mile of the finish he clipped a rock with his left rear tyre, pitching his car into a roll.
He lost seven seconds in the incident, the mistake allowing ‘Mihalur’ to seize a 1.4-second lead heading into the final 11.2mile decider over the notorious El Chocolate stage in Mexico.
But Armstrong dominated the final stage, beating Mihalur by 3.2 seconds overall to claim the Esports title.
He was as surprised as he was delighted. “I didn’t think I would make up enough time through the final stage to catch Mihalur but it went better than I could have hoped,” he said.
“It has been a great experience, maybe not as exciting as the real thing, but I’m delighted to be the first actual rally driver to win the Esport virtual World championship.”
❝ I didn’t think I would make up enough time in the final stage but it went better than I hoped