Stage wins offered no cheer for Meeke

Even his tally of nine stage wins on Rally Islas Canarias wasn’t enough to console Kris Meeke after a puncture cost him an almost certain victory on round four of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge qualifier last week.

Northern Irishman Meeke was leading by 17.9 seconds when he suffered a front-left puncture on the penultimate stage of leg one. The deflation dropped him to sixth although he was able to fight back to fourth at the finish in Las Palmas.

“We proved we’ve got the pace and when we get the set-up right on this car it’s absolutely fantastic to drive,” said the Peugeot UK pilot. “But that just makes what happened more frustrating because we know we had the speed to win this rally. Winning stages is all well and good but we came here to win the rally and we weren’t able to do that for a stupid reason.”