It was the man himself, Sebastien Loeb, who declared that Kris Meeke could succeed him one day as World rally champion.
Right now, Meeke would settle for the Intercontinental Rally Challenge crown — the equivalent of the football’s First Division to the World championship’s Premier League — and he heads for the island of Madeira in search of more precious points.
With three successive wins for Peugeot in his first IRC season, Meeke has been the sensation of the global series, prompting speculation that he may well be in line for promotion to the “Premiership” when, over the next 18 months, the World championship completes a switch to the Super 2000 cars — albeit with 1600cc turbocharged engines — that he is currently displaying such mastery over.
Clearly Loeb was impressed when he acted as co-driver for Meeke during the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed, commenting afterwards: “Kris is very fast and I didn’t see a big difference in the way he drives compared to me.”
“He is definitely a future World champion.”
But the Dungannon driver refuses to get ahead of himself and is looking no further to the future than the next two IRC rounds in Madeira and a three weeks later in the Czech Republic.
He regards these two rallies as critical in his battle to retain the championship lead especially after his Peugeot team chose Rally Russia earlier this month as one of their opt-out events.
But now it is Czech Kopecky’s turn to sit on the sidelines as Skoda elect to miss the Madeira round before the full battle is renewed again on the Barum Rally — his home event.
Meeke recognises it puts him under even more pressure to deliver a strong result on the switchback roads of Madeira.
“Now my lead over Kopecky is down to one point and even though he won’t be in Madeira this week I have to capitalise on the situation,” he explained.
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