Hi, friends!
Toyota has signed ex-Citroen's top dog Kris Meeke. Now when it's obvious that Esapekka Lappi is a new Citroen driver, Toyota had to find a new signing. And that's fired Citroen's star Kris Meeke who used to win some rallies, but also crash more often.
Why did they sign him?
Well that's maybe only Toyota's team boss Tommi Makinen knows because when Kris Meeke is in the rally car, there's a potential shunt around the corner. Makinen has four WRC titles around his belt and he knows very well who is a potential winner in his car and who's not.
He brought Ott Tanak for this season and Tanak won four times from the January and the other two Toyota drivers won nothing. So, that signing was success.
Now he signed Kris Meeke and maybe he will give him and his team more success. Whole rally world (that one who knows more about the sport) thinks that it is a big danger in this signing. Nobody knows what kind of contract is about. Is this a one year contract or a longer term.
I would say that Meeke is a clever guy and he probably wanted longer contract because this could be his last bigger chance in the works team. There're no available rally seats in the top teams and from one of them he was fired after Rally Portugal where he had really big shunt.
Kris Meeke is that kind of a driver, with all or nothing approach. Just like his mentor Colin McRae had. Colin also had a crash prone personality but I liked Colin McRae and he was one of the reasons why I started to compete myself.
Anyway, this could be a very expensive mistake from the Toyota works team if Meeke starts with shunts again and everything is possible when we talk about him.
On the other hand Citroen signed two very reliable drivers on the market - five times WRC champion Seb Ogier and the Fin I just wrote about - Esapekka Lappi. It's still unknown who will be in the third car. Maybe it will be shared between some of the drivers from the Citroen's history.
New generation of the WRC cars is rarely available on the 2nd hand market and there was one car in the private hands - the Ford Fiesta WRC from Mads Ostberg which is now sold to Estonia. The owner should be rally rent company OT Racing. It's obvious that the owner of that company is Ott Tanak (who drives for Toyota, btw).
There will be for sure more news from therally market because there are only two events on the calendar left - in Catalunya and Australia.
Some of the drivers are still not confirmed - two guys from the Hyundai squad and Craig Breen from the Citroen.
However, only pure talents should be in the works seats and no paying guys with bags full of money.
Cheers!
Thanks for photos and vide to WRC.com and Youtube.
Please enjoy! :)
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