CRONIN SEEKS TO EMULATE McRAE
Irishman eyes deal to handle VW Golf GTi R5 in UK’s highest profile series
Four-time British Rally champion Keith Cronin is on the verge of securing a deal that will give him the chance to try and equal Jimmy McRae’s record of five BRC titles.
The 35-year-old will campaign the VW Polo GTI R5 previously driven by his younger brother Daniel on the opening rounds of the Irish Tarmac Rally Championship in Galway and West Cork. Keith contested last weekend’s Motorsport Ireland National Championship round, the
Birr Rally, in the machine.
The Cork driver told Motorsport News: “The British Rally
Championship is still the target and it’s looking like we will get there.”
Cronin, who last claimed the British title in 2017 at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta R5, last appeared in the BRC when he took a fifth-placed finish overall on the Ulster Rally, also at the wheel of a Fiesta R5. He was the third BRC-registered car home and that helped him to secure sixth in the final 2021 points table.
He added that he would be confident going back into the UK’s top-flight series despite a lack of recent mileage.
Cronin was a visitor to the West Cork Rally in the middle of March. After that event, he said: “The pace [of the R5 runners] has definitely gone up. The boys are pushing each other much harder. Even when Craig [Breen] was there in 2019, yes, he was winning, but the others were pushing him hard. I think the level has gone higher again.”
Cronin, who was the first driver to win the Irish Tarmac title in an R5 car at the controls of a Citroen DS3 in 2016, will not register for points for the Irish National series.