Meeke: IRC title defence still on track

Kris Meeke says his chances of a successful Intercontinental Rally Challenge title defence remain on track – with the Peugeot UK driver moving onto his favoured events in the coming months.

Meeke has won one rally from five starts so far this year – but he has failed to finish three times. Despite being fifth in the title standings, 27 points behind leader Juho Hänninen, Meeke is calm about his situation.

“Look at the results,” he said, “Juho has 42 points from five results. Jan Kopecký has 31 points from five results. Those boys have two more events to score from before they start dropping scores. I have 15 points from two rallies or 10 points from one rally, which means I can still score on six more events. This is the beauty of the IRC. Some drivers like it, some don’t, but it is the way it is.

“I’m confident for the second half of the season. I like the rallies and we went well on them last year. We’ve got some improvements to the car coming, which will help. I know we keep on saying this, but this championship is still wide open. What we do need to do, however, is start putting the scores down. Right now, we just haven’t had the rub of the green. It’s been silly little things which have stopped us winning. But I’m sure – particularly the way Peugeot Sport is working – we’ll put those behind us in Belgium.”

The IRC resumes with the Geko Ypres Rally from 24-26 June. Meeke and co-driver Paul Nagle won the event at their first attempt in 2009 in their Kronos Racing 207 S2000.