Ireland’s Craig Breen and his co-driver Paul Nagle staked their claim for a full-time return to the FIA World Rally Championship in 2022 after the Hyundai Motorsports pair scored their third consecutive podium finish of the season at Rally Finland on Sunday. Breen and Nagle led the way following the opening day of the event on Friday and ran well throughout the weekend to come home in third place behind their Hyundai teammate’s Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja.
The third-place finish was Breen’s third podium in a row following back-to-back second-place finishes at Rally Estonia and Rally Belgium.
The result means that the Breen is in sixth place in the championship standings on 76 points, eight ahead of Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta.
Breen was full-time in the WRC with Citroen in 2018 before moving to Hyundai on a partial program in 2019 following Citroen’s withdrawal from the WRC and has been on a partial program with the team ever since. There are just three full-time manufacturers in the WRC for 2022 when the sport switches to hybrid power and while a full-time drive at Hyundai is possible the Irish crew could end up with the M-Sport Ford WRC team on a full-time program as it yet clear what the UK-based outfit will do with their line-up for next season.