Meeke glad to hit back in style after early misery
Ulsterman praises team after finally showing his credentials in the desert
KRIS Meeke finally got to enjoy his Dakar Rally adventure, completing the longest section of the Saudi Arabian event without major trouble and setting the fastest time in the lightweight T3 class.
The Dungannon driver has been plagued by problems ever since his PH Sport Zephyr buggy caught fire and burned out the electrics on Sunday, resulting in him and navigator Wouter Rosegaar having to be towed out of stages one and three.
But yesterday the five-time World Championship rally winner was able to show he can be at home in these desert marathons, finishing the long Wadi Ad-dawasir to Riyadh test, which contained a 210-mile timed section, in top T3 spot and little more than a minute behind the lightweight class winner Aron Domzala in his more powerful T4 Can-am.
The stage win was a major boost to Meeke’s morale after his frustrations boiled over on Tuesday when the Zephyr again succumbed to the hangover of the earlier fire. He implored the French PH Sport team to sort out the problems which he said were “snowballing”.
It proved more reliable yesterday, allowing him to set a string of top-six times through the passage controls and finish six seconds ahead of American Mitchell Guthrie and more than three minutes up on Seth Quintero, who has taken over the T3 lead from Cristina Gutierrez.
Red Bull USA team-mate Gutierrez lost close to an hour when she stopped a number of times in the final part of the stage and dropped back to second, some 40 minutes behind 18-year-old Quintero.
Although Meeke remains a whopping 23 hours behind the leader after his earlier dramas, he was in buoyant mood last night, tweeting: “Was beginning to think Dakar was trying to crush my soul before we even got going! Huge thanks to PH Sport guys for getting the Zypher back to full working order.”
Bangor co-driver Michael Orr, partnering Mansour al Helei in another of the Abu Dhabi Racing entries, was eighth on the stage and in 14th place.
Up at the front of the rally, Qatari Nasser al Attiyah won his third stage in a row in his Toyota Hilux to close within five minutes of the leading X-raid Mini of Stefane Peterhansel despite dropping 12 minutes with punctures on the first day,
Carlos Sainz moved back into third place in the second of the Minis, 12 minutes ahead of his fellow former WRC champion Sebastien Loeb in the Prodrive-built BRX Hunter.
Better feeling: A smiling Kris Meeke with navigator Wouter Rosegaar after their stage win in the Dakar Rally (above), and in action in the desert (right)