Photo Credit: Citroen Racing Kris Meeke has been in the form of his life in 2016, winning two out of the four WRC events he has competed on and being right on the pace on the other two. Many will argue that because he is only completing a bit-part campaign, he has benefited from a lower road positioning and to an extent this is true, but you don't win Neste Rally Finland and with it set the highest average speed ever recorded in the WRC if you are not a brave, seriously talented driver.
The Brit has always had the speed but has now managed to keep the speed without the errors that we became used to with Meeke, and with all new regulations in 2017 Kris could be a real contender for the World Rally Championship title. That can only be a good thing for the series and for Brits like myself, who haven't had a driver to get excited about since 2003 with Colin McRae and Richard Burns. So why is it so important that we have a rampant Kris Meeke next year that can challenge the VW's and Sebastien Ogier for the title? Well from a British perspective it can only raise the profile of the WRC, with the championship reaching main stream TV back in the day because of McRae and Burns' exploits. That way more people will potentially get involved, improving the health of the sport in the United Kingdom. My own surroundings aside, the sport needs somebody to be able to consistently challenge Ogier. Latvala was in the title fight in 2014 and hopefully will be next year, but it was inevitable that Ogier would beat the Finn as he was ultimately, and is, better than everybody else. But Meeke in 2016 was battling the Frenchman tooth and nail in Monte-Carlo and for a wee while in Sweden, pointing to a potential mouth watering fight next year between two drivers competing for different teams. It remains to be seen how competitive both the 2017 Polo R and C3 WRC cars are. Adding further spice to the mix is the media battle between Meeke himself and VW team principal Jost Capito. Capito was heavily critical of the WRC road order rules after Meeke dominated Rally Portugal, and before Rally Finland the German clearly had his crystal ball out, claiming Meeke would win the event. Meeke duly did, with Capito hitting back claiming that Meeke could take no value from his historic win, while Meeke quipped back: "I'll see you next year!" This could be mouth-watering if the two teams and drivers are battling in such close proximity next year, and could add to the title fight. What we really want is a load of drivers being able to battle fair and square with the championship going down to the wire on the final event of the season. It obviously remains to be seen how competitive the cars from Volkswagen, Hyundai, Citroen, M-Sport and Toyota will be, but let's hope we can have at least somebody next year who can take the fight to Sebastien Ogier season long, because then the World Championship really will be back to its best. Kris Meeke looks like the most likely man to do that.
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WRCArticles covering the World Rally Championship Archives
January 2018
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