Meeke’s weekend a “disaster” in C3
Kris Meeke labelled his Rally Monte Carlo a “disaster” after crashing out on Friday before colliding with a road car on Saturday’s road section back to Gap.
Meeke’s rally started well, with Citroen’s team leader running in an early second place. Unfortunately for the Dungannon driver, he ran wide on the second stage on Friday, damaged the right-rear suspension on the C3 and was forced to retire before the road section incident ended any hopes of scoring powerstage points and put him out.
“That was a disastrous end to a bad weekend,” said Meeke. “This thing just didn’t come together for us. I told you before that we can test, test and test again, but it’s on the rally that you really learn and we’ve learned a hell of a lot here. The biggest disappointment is that we go away from here not having scored any points. This wasn’t the rally we wanted to start the year.”
Despite his retirement, Meeke refused to be downbeat about the year ahead.
“I’m still very, very excited about what we’ve got coming,” said Meeke. “We did a couple of asphalt tests – both in the dry – for this event, but we’ve plenty on gravel and snow. For Sweden, we’ll be there. This thing’s definitely not going to rattle me.”
Meeke was quick to praise Breen’s drive in the older car, saying: “That was an incredible job from Craig. He’s had an absolutely brilliant Monte Carlo and he really did the business.”