Nagle to do battle in the Bulge and at Rally Sweden

PAUL Nagle will return to international rally action this weekend when he lines up alongside Craig Breen for the Legends Boucles Bastogne, Belgium’s biggest historic rally.

The Irish duo will drive a BMW M3 from the Mats Van den Brand Motorsport stable in The Netherlands in the two-day rally close to the Luxembourg border. Bastogne is famous as the location of the Battle of the Bulge during World War 2.

Over 300 cars are expected to take part and rivals include former World Rally Championship stars Kris Meeke and Mikko Hirvonen both in Ford Escorts.

Breen and Nagle’s Belgian outing will mark their first competitive event since November’s Killarney Historic Rally and their first overseas event since Rally GB last October.

With the Galway International set for this Sunday it seems the pair will not be in a position to defend their Irish Tarmac Championship title. However, further international outings with the Hyundai Motorsport World Rally team remain a possibility although nothing is confirmed yet.

“Sorry to say no Galway Rally this year for us, but delighted to tell you we will start Boucles de Spa in Bastogne with a beautiful M3 from Mats van den Brand,” Breen posted on social media recently. “Paul and I are looking forward to this unique event and continuing our ‘historic’ journey. Don’t worry though, we’ll be back to modern machinery before too long - but I am going to enjoy the soundtrack from this era in the meantime.”

Ahern’s Garage in Castleisland, Kerry’s main BMW dealer, is one of the crew’s sponsors for their Belgian event.

Meanwhile, Nagle and Breen have been given a surprise call-up to the Hyundai Motorsports World Rally Team for next month’s Rally Sweden.

They showed solid speed in their two WRC outings with the Korean manufacturer in 2019, but were not named as part of Hyundai’s plans for the 2020 season.

Their place on the team comes at the expense of nine-time World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb and his co-driver Daniel Elena.

The French crew were originally set to be part of Hyundai’s squad for the only all snow rally of the season, but they did not have a very successful Rally Monte Carlo last weekend.

Hyundai Motorsport team principal Andrea Adamo said: “We have taken the decision to add Craig Breen to our line-up for Rally Sweden alongside Thierry Neuville [Monte Carlo winner] and Ott Tanak [current world champion] in a bid to field the most competitive package possible for the event with the best available options for road position. We opted to bring in Craig based on his performance in Sweden in 2018 when he finished in second place, and the potential he showed in our i20 Coupe WRC last season.”

Nagle was busy preparing for this weekend’s Legend Bastogne Rally in Belgium when he got the call on Monday morning.

“Everything happened at 100 miles per hour,” he said.

Rally Sweden is scheduled for February 13 to 16. The last time Breen and Nagle were due to drive for Hyundai, on November’s Rally Australia, the event got cancelled due to bush fires in the Coffs Harbour region.

Ironically, they could face a similar issue next month as there is a distinct lack of snow in Varmlands where they rally stages are based as the rally criss-crosses the Norwegian border.

A regional rally in Norway, an event that uses the same roads as the Friday leg of Rally Sweden, will not take place this Saturday due to the lack of snow on the ground.