Breen impressed all through on his first begin of a partial marketing campaign for Hyundai this 12 months after leaving a full-time seat at M-Sport over the low season.
The Irishman, boosted by a beneficial highway place, discovered himself with a chance to say a maiden WRC win after scoring 4 levels wins that resulted in a rally lead that lasted till Saturday evening.
Breen was locked in a tense head-to-head together with his M-Sport substitute Ott Tanak for almost all of the rally earlier than finally ending second 18.7s adrift, after Hyundai’s resolution to deploy workforce orders to position Breen behind teammate Thierry Neuville backfired.
The 33-year-old admitted the outcome was a lot wanted for his personal psychological state after troublesome 2022 littered by crashes and retirements that took him to some darkish locations.
“Clearly it’s an unbelievable feeling,” Breen advised Motorsport.com.
“It has been an extended greater than 12 months now to be ready for this sense to be again preventing on the entrance. I’m simply actually proud of how the weekend unfolded and to be on the entrance with none errors and be clear. To carry house a second is ideal actually.”
Craig Breen, James Fulton, Hyundai World Rally Workforce Hyundai i20 N Rally1
Photograph by: Pink Bull Content material Pool
“Actually, I wanted it for my very own state. It’s been a tough outdated couple of months, over a 12 months mainly. I received’t say I misplaced the arrogance, however for positive it was troublesome to maintain the idea on a regular basis,” he added.
“However for this weekend to be preventing on the entrance, already on Friday it was nice however there was nonetheless some doubt with our highway place. As a lot as everyone else was questioning it I used to be questioning it myself as nicely.
“Till you might be at a degree taking part in discipline together with your opponents you’ll be able to’t actually ensure. However to proceed to hurry into Saturday and once more at present we now have to be actually joyful. It simply leaves me hungry for the long run now.
“It means all the things actually it has given me all the arrogance once more to maintain pushing ahead. We’ve all of the capabilities to be on the entrance and I’ll try to preserve that manner now.”
It’s unclear when Breen will make his subsequent look within the WRC with Dani Sordo primed to take over the third manufacturing unit Hyundai entry at Rally Mexico subsequent month.
Within the meantime, he’ll contest the opening spherical of the European Rally Championship in Portugal from 11-12 March.