Meeke eager to get back to competitive driving

MINI WRC Team driver Kris Meeke says that he is eager to get back to competitive World RallyChampionship driving on this month's Rally Finland, after a non-competitive lay off of three months.

Meeke, who returned to the WRC full-time for the first time in 2006, when he drove for the works Citroen J-WRC team. He was dropped from the team at the end of 2006, and drove in various national rallies, and a few international ones, until 2009 when he was picked up by the Peugeot UK for an assault on the IRC. He stormed to the Driver's Championship, winning the championship one round early in Italy and by 11 points. He was signed by the MINI WRC Team at the end of 2010 for six WRC events.

Meeke will contest the rest of the WRC season, with the exception of Rally Australia. He has already took part on the Rally d'Italia Sardegna in May, and held fourth until a throttle problem sent him into retirement. He will take part in the Rally Estonia next weekend in practice for Rally Finland, where he doesn't have the best finishing record in Finland.

“There’s been a three-month gap between Sardinia and Finland. But once Finland starts, we’re doing five from the last six rallies – I just can’t wait to get going again. Before Rally Finland we’re going to Rally Estonia, which is a brilliant way to get back into the car again.”

Between Italy & Finland, the MINI Team have been completing an extensive testing programme on tarmac, in preparation for the three upcoming tarmac events, Germany, Spain and France. Meeke and team-mate Dani Sordo took part in the tests, and Meeke is impressed with how the car has been performing on sealed-surfaces.

Of the tests, he said: “We believe now we have a complete package. We’re turning up the tests and getting quickly into the nitty-gritty, we’re not hitting any small problems which would slow us down.”

Meeke and Sordo are both due to take part in Rally Finland, sporting numbers 52 and 37, respectively. They are not the only MINI's entered in the rally, with Daniel Olivera, Armindo Araujo, Matti Rantanen and Mattias Therman all taking part in a MINI John Cooper Works WRC.