Nagle and Meeke aim to score high at Monte Carlo and Sweden
PAUL Nagle’s 2018 World Rally Championship programme was confirmed by the Citroën Total Abu Dhabi World Rally team just before the Christmas break and, as expected, he and Kris Meeke will lead the three-car squad for the year ahead.
New for 2018 is the arrival of nine-time world rally champion Sébastien Loeb who will join the team on three events next year. The news, as the French team chases its 100th world championship victory, does not effect Meeke and Nagle but their Waterford team mate Craig Breen will sit out Mexico, Corsica and Catalonia to make room for the returning Loeb. The championship gets underway with the world famous Monte Carlo Rally in three weeks time.
Meeke said: “We learned a lot during the first season with the Citroën C3 WRC and we’ve gathered a lot of information to help us do better in 2018. Despite a few tough moments, we managed to show our potential. We are now going to try even harder to be more consistent on the variety of surfaces used in the championship. We won’t be taking anything for granted but by working in a relaxed and calm manner, we can achieve good things. We’ll be aiming to score heavily at Monte-Carlo and in Sweden in order to get off to a good start in this second campaign.”
The WRC will be launched at Autosport International in Birmingham from January 11 to 14 where all the current drivers, co-drivers will be attendance alongside their 2018 cars to mark the first time that the series has been launched in Britain.
Only one Kerry competitor ventured to county Derry over the holidays to contest the annual Turkey Run Rally in Ballykelly on Friday, December 29. Kilcummin co-driver Damian Fleming guided local driver Damian Tourish to 14th overall in their Ford Escort Mk2.
Pat O’Driscoll from Clonakilty was the overall winner of the Jimmy Devane Memorial Autocross 2017 in his Semog Buggy. Held at Tralee Racecourse for the first time on Saturday last year’s winner James Lucey from Ballyvourney finished second and Killarney‘s Tommy Daly finished third. PJ O’Connor from Limerick took the Saloon category in his Mitsubishi Lancer E9.