The Ulsterman, twice a runner-up in the fiercely competitive FIA Junior WRC series, will mark his first start since last year’s Acropolis Rally in September when he gets back behind the wheel in ERC3.
Armstrong made a one-off appearance in the category at last year’s Azores Rallye. There, he set a blistering pace amongst the more powerful Rally2 cars and even posted several top-10 stage times.
“I’m really grateful to M-Sport Poland for this opportunity,” Armstrong told FIAERC.com. “It’ll be good to get back out behind the wheel again in the Fiesta Rally3 and hopefully show what we can do.
“I’ve always really enjoyed the stages in the Fafe region. I think we did two or three of them as part of [WRC] Portugal, so that should help us. Hopefully the weather’s a bit better than last year and we can have a good push.
“We had some really good pace in the Azores last year, so it’ll be interesting to have another go with the car in Fafe and see what sort of times we can do. I’m just going to try to enjoy the experience and bring home a good result.”
The 28-year-old, who does not have any concrete plans beyond the opening round, also praised the high level of competition this year’s FIA European Rally Championship has attracted.
He added: “I’m not too sure on the rest of my plans for this year, but this is a really nice rally to do and there’s a really good entry from what I’ve seen. We’ll see what other Rally3 competition there is when the final list comes out.”
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