MINI must be given time, says Meeke

Kris Meeke has said that people must give the new team time to get into the WRC, when they debut next summer.

The Prodrive-run team will only run on a few selected events to find their feet in the sport. The team will then run the full calendar in 2012 and 2013, with their main goal being challenging for the title in 2013.

Meeke and the team have been testing the car on gravel and tarmac over the last week on the island of Sardinia. Before this week’s tests, the team tested the car in Portugal on gravel. Marcus Gronhölm and Kris Meeke drove the car then.

"I never like to get too optimistic; you never know where the others are at. But I have sat in quite a few cars down the years and I'm very impressed with where we are at, particularly bearing in mind the car hasn't done 2,000 kilometres yet. The important thing here is that we don't try to get ahead of ourselves. The team is gelling fantastically well, but everything is going to take time."

David Lapworth is also in the same mind-state as Meeke. He says the team has already set out a three-year plan.

"We need patience at the moment. Everybody [in the team] is automatically focused on winning the first event, winning the title in 2012 - that's what we all want. But that's not the three-year plan. The three-year plan is about launching the car in 2011, running through another development year in 2012 and then challenging for the title in 2013. But, you know what it's like, as soon as you get the numbers on the doors."