The loop will soon be closed for Paul Nagle. The Irishman, current co-pilot of Craig Breenhad indeed started in the WRC at the Rally of Catalonia in 2004 alongside Donie O’Sullivan, and it is at the end of this same event that he will bow out in just over two weeks.
Nagle has won five rallies out of his 102 WRC appearances, all alongside Chris Meeke. He also took 18 podiums, the most recent being Rally Sardinia in early June with Craig Breen. The latter will therefore have a new co-driver from Rally Japan, the final round of the 2022 season, whose identity will be revealed in the coming days.
Nagle will have claimed his fifth and final victory alongside Meeke, on the 2017 Rally Catalunya.
For Breen and Nagle, it’s the end of a collaboration that began in 2012, when the duo won the SWRC title before meeting again for partial programs at Hyundai between 2019 and 2021 which resulted in four top 3 finishes. . “It was quite an adventure, and the memories and the friends that I was able to make will remain forever etched in my memory”Nagle said on his Facebook page.
“A big thank you to all the people who have followed us around the world for the past 20 years, to my family and my friends, and in particular to my wife Cathy. Thank you for being there, in good times and bad. You have always been with me. Thanks to Craig [Breen] and Chris [Meeke] for making this dream possible. It gives us incredible memories.”
As we have said, Nagle’s most fruitful association will have been with Kris Meeke. The two men indeed won the IRC title together in 2009, signing in the process five victories as well as two podiums. The duo then took part in a partial program with the Mini WRC team, before a series of five seasons with the Citroën works team from 2014. It was during this period that they have won their five successes, not counting eight additional podiums. Nagle will also have worked alongsideAndreas Mikkelsen at Volkswagen in two rounds contested in 2013.