Mayo rally pair John Warren and Ruthann O’Connor kicked of their 2026 season in style in the McHale Fusion 4 Plus Ford Fiesta Rally2 during an action-packed Corrib Oil Galway International 2-day Rally, over the weekend.

On Saturday’s nine stages around Headford, Warren was on the pace from the start, an opening stage battle which began with local Galway driver Stephen Greaney in a similar M-Sport Rally2 Fiesta saw the local with an advantage of 0.7 of a second that set the tone for the loop of three stages, where the second stage was interrupted when Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 debutant, Donegal’s Eamonn Kelly crashed out when he slid off and hit a wall.

Out on the second loop the battle continued with Warren trying to find the perfect tyre to suit the tricky conditions best. On Stage 4 Warren broke Greaney’s streak of Stage wins before the loop was interrupted when Clonakilty’s David Guest slid off and damaged the steering rack in his Fiesta Rally2.

Warren tweaked settings in his Fiesta Rally2 in the last service of the day as the crews headed out on the last loop around Headford, a loop that saw Greaney come a cropper to the conditions and ended his event in dramatic fashion leaving Warren in the lead of the Class overnight; with co-driver Ruthann at the end of the day’s nine stages describing the day’s conditions as extremely tricky!

Even though the weather was dry, conditions on Sunday’s six stages that were based around Monivea, were even more challenging with mucky conditions throughout. Warren was quick to set the pace, his liking for the conditions transferred into fastest class stage times on all but one of the six stages keeping Monaghan man Shane Maguire at bay in his Citroen C3 Rally2 car.

Ruthann was well impressed with their Class win and eleventh place overall finish on what was their first outing of 2026. “We were consistent throughout, as we set good times despite very tricky conditions,” she said. “The car felt really good and John drove with a broad smile all weekend!”

Speaking at the finish ramp on Sunday, John said:

“It was hard to know and judge the limits on some of the stages and the last thing we wanted was to make a mistake, looking back there were times when I felt we could have gone quicker, but it wasn’t about that, the experience of the car and the conditions is the much bigger take-away from this weekend and to be honest it was just class!! We had an absolute blast and I want to say a big thanks to Niall McGonigle from IN Sport for providing an unreal car.”

Attention now turns to Mayo Stages Rally in a few weeks but it will be a different experience for Ruthann as she is secretary for the event, swapping her pacenotes for admin duties, “Yes it’s a big change but it’s important to help out on our local event which returns to Westport, it’s important to give back and while yes I would definitely prefer to be competing and it would without doubt be less work, it takes a lot of people to make an event of this size a success and it is an honor to be part of Stephen McGing’s team for the event.”

To keep up to date with John, Ruthann and the Fusion 4 Plus Fiesta, you can follow @mchalerallying on TikTok and Instagram.

Phot Credits: CRS Pics