IRC winning record looms for Meeke

Kris Meeke will start Rally Internacional de Curitiba on Thursday in the knowledge that a second successive victory on the event will put him top of the all-time Intercontinental Rally Challenge winners’ list.

Meeke, from Northern Ireland, has won four IRC events, a record he shares with Giandomenico Basso, Luca Rossetti and Nicolas Vouilloz. But with Meeke the only member of the quartet competing in Brazil this week, he knows that victory would make him the most successful driver in the IRC since the series began in 2007.

The Peugeot UK driver, 30, said: “It’s a nice record to have but I won’t be starting the rally with that as my only goal. I’ll just be aiming to score more points than all of the IRC regulars. That’s my job and that’s what I do on every rally.”

All of Meeke’s four IRC wins came in 2009. Co-driven by Irishman Paul Nagle, Meeke triumphed in Curitiba, Açores, Ypres and Sanremo in his Kronos Racing-run Peugeot 207 S2000.