KRIS MEEKE
“The driving just came naturally”
George Custer was a soldier in the American Civil War. He said: “It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up.” He’d have been ahead of his time by quite a bit, but it’s quite possible he was talking about my season. I was pretty low on the Thursday night in Germany after that stupid mistake in the superspecial, but Paul [Nagle], myself and the whole Citroen team got up again after that knock. And it was a very special feeling to be back on the top step of the podium again on Sunday.
We saw back in Corsica how good this car is on asphalt and it was always in my mind that Spain could be a strong event for us. Trouble is, I just don’t know the gravel stages very well. I’ve been here a few times, but have very little experience of the roads: in 2014 I had a double puncture and retired early; in 2015 I was slow and last year it was pouring with rain. Before that I did the stages once in the Mini [in 2011], but the dust was a nightmare.
The feeling was that if I could stay in the lead group then there might be a chance. But then we got the tyres wrong on Friday morning and ended up with nothing left at the rear of the car. Literally, we were on the canvas at the end of Terra Alta first time through; we were lucky not to get a puncture.
I was really fed up about that. Then we spun at the end of the first stage after lunch. The inside front wheel got hooked up on the lip of the Tarmac as we came off the gravel and it just spun us around.
I reckon those problems probably cost us around 15 seconds, so to be right there on Friday night was pretty good. People were then starting to talk about our chances on the Tarmac stages. But they seemed to have forgotten that Ott [Tanak] won in Germany and he was right behind us, [Sebastien] Ogier wasn’t a million miles away from us in Corsica and [Thierry] Neuville was there as well. This was no walk in the park. But from the first stage on Saturday morning, the car felt perfect and driving it came completely naturally. Everything just worked. When it’s like this, the confidence rises and it feels like there’s less and less risk. This was how I felt in Corsica and in Mexico – or in Finland last year.
When we got to the dark stages on Sunday morning, it was an amazing feeling driving the best car down this tunnel of light. It was beautiful.
And getting to the end of the final stage and seeing my family there waiting for me was just mega. My wife Danielle doesn’t come on rallies. It’s six years since she came to the last one and I can understand that. Work for me means getting up and going out of the hotel at 0600hrs on recces and the same on rallies – there’s not much fun in that. Now we live in Andorra, I asked if she fancied bringing our two daughters down for a look around. They came on Thursday and were going home on Friday.they stayed until Sunday and enjoyed it.
So, I’ve got up again. And this time I’d really like to stay up. But at the same time, this result came on an event where we know the car’s strong. Nothing changed overnight. Rally GB and Australia will still be tough, but we’re on the right road.