🇮🇪 Jon Armstrong

Irish rally driver competing for M-Sport Ford in the FIA World Rally Championship, and the most unusual route to the top flight on the grid. He reached WRC2 level in 2016 on a funded prize drive, then lost his budget entirely — and turned to sim racing to stay sharp, winning the WRC Esports World Championship in 2018 from a field of more than two thousand entrants.

That title led to a job at Codemasters designing the very rally games he had won on. Backed by that work he rebuilt a real-world career, finishing runner-up in Junior WRC twice and taking the ERC3 title in 2023, before M-Sport promoted him to a full Rally1 seat. Strongest on asphalt, and known for meticulous preparation.