Meeke and Nagle to skip Rally Poland to prepare for Finland

KRIS Meeke and Paul Nagle have been asked by Citroen Racing bosses to step aside on Rally Poland later this month in an effort to help them regain their lost form.

The Kerry/Tyrone pairing have been the subject of necessary criticism in recent months. They have crashed out of rally-winning positions on the last three rounds of the World Rally Championship, the most recent incident coming on last weekend’s Rally Sardinia where they clipped a bank and rolled during the Saturday leg.

However it is not widely documented that their Citroen C3 World Rally Car is not as competitive as cars from Ford, Hyundai and Toyota and the Irish crew are over driving the car to stay in touch with their rivals.

Citroen bosses feel they need time to mentally prepare for August’s Rally Finland, an event they won last year and have decided to take them off the Rally Poland entry list.

“After a series of disappointing results, we have asked Kris Meeke to take a step back for this next rally,” explained Yves Matton, Citroën Racing Team Principal.

“Kris accepted that this would be in the best interests of the team and we’d like to thank him for his understanding.

“This break will give him the chance to recharge his batteries and release some of the pressure before preparing for Rally Finland. He won in Finland last year after producing a perfect performance, so we hope he’ll come back stronger.”

Meeke is hurting too, and needs this chance to re-focus.

He said: “First of all, I’m sorry for Citroën, for all the team and for our fans… We had made a good start to the rally, I was trying hard to not make any mistakes and keep it clean and tidy. But we touched a bank with the rear left wheel and it spat the car over immediately, and we rolled. We managed to get the car back on its wheels and to the end of the stage, but it was inevitable that we would have to retire once we saw that part of the roll cage was damaged. I’m trying my best at the moment, but it’s simply not good enough.”

Rob Duggan was also competing on Rally Sardinia, his second outing in the Junior World Rally Championship.

An off-road excursion of Friday and a broken driveshaft on Saturday put paid to his challenge but he did set his first fastest stage time at world level on the opening leg.

Meanwhile in Belgium, Keith Cronin and Mike Galvin were fifth on Rally Wervik, an event they used in preparation for the legendary Ypres Rally in two weeks’ time. The Killarney and District Motor Club could have finished higher but a faulty power-steering rack, that eventually had to be replaced, hindered progress.