Kris Meeke

[KKS]

Better speed and results in C3 in Poland than Meeke in Finland. Including best C3 results in PS of the year.

3 times 3rd place in WRC championship, barely loosing second last year. Beating Ogier for the win in straight fight in same car. Clearly faster than Latvala in same car whole second half of 2016.

"Nothing". Pointless discussion really.

tonnes of bull$hit

[noel157]

Mikkelsen was better in Poland than Meeke was in Finland... 2 events where these didn't compete against each other, then you go on to talk being 3rd best in a Volkswagen. You need to cleanse your nerd head and actually sit in a WRC car, and get the sh1t scared out of you, and stop trawling over e-wrc to find stats to suit your skewed arguments.

The guy doesn't listen, obsessed with Meeke, you'd think he had asked him for an autograph was told to f off.
Telling lies and making up stuff about Loeb's test and not having the cajones to stand over the statement. Guy is a waster.

[Eric]

tonnes of bull$hit

Name one team in WRC that would pick Meeke over Mikkelsen. Meeke is over the top. Mikkelsen is young and talented.

[olemann]

Something is wrong. Tanak or Mikkelsen should not be in the top of an asphalt rally the first day against the likes of Ogier and Neuville.

[er88]

Name one team in WRC that would pick Meeke over Mikkelsen. Meeke is over the top. Mikkelsen is young and talented.

Well...., you could say Toyota for starters. Tried to sign Meeke, pushed the boat out with a multi year contract and offered millions a year in wages. Meeke visited the team base and talked with Makinen extensively. Then when Andreas was a free agent - begging for anyone to give him a drive - Tommi didn't bat an eyelid (neither did Citroen at first). Surely if Tommi really rated Andreas as highly as the man he wanted to build his team around (Meeke), he would've given Mikkelsen a drive when he was right under their noses?

Citroen will also go into next year (from what I've heard, unless something changes in the next month) with Meeke for a full season, and no Mikkelsen.

People can rightfully or wrongfully agree or disagree with your statement, but the above is what we have to base the evidence on so far.

Ofcourse it could be different now after Meeke's poor year but even still, Andreas as of yet hasn't done anything in his C3 outings that Meeke hasn't done as well (Meeke didn't just fight at the front on a tarmac rally, he dominated Corsica. Also won in Mexico).

I do myself think Andreas would be a better long term bet than Meeke, but I don't think some team principals are as convinced as some fans on here. They have doubts about him, otherwise he would be locked into a long term contract right now.

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[car]

Well...., you could say Toyota for starters. Tried to sign Meeke, pushed the boat out with a multi year contract and offered millions a year in wages. Meeke visited the team base and talked with Makinen extensively. Then when Andreas was a free agent - begging for anyone to give him a drive - Tommi didn't bat an eyelid (neither did Citroen at first). Surely if Tommi really rated Andreas as highly as the man he wanted to build his team around (Meeke), he would've given Mikkelsen a drive when he was right under their noses?

Citroen will also go into next year (from what I've heard, unless something changes in the next month) with Meeke for a full season, and no Mikkelsen.

People can rightfully or wrongfully agree or disagree with your statement, but the above is what we have to base the evidence on so far.

Ofcourse it could be different now after Meeke's poor year but even still, Andreas as of yet hasn't done anything in his C3 outings that Meeke hasn't done as well (Meeke didn't just fight at the front on a tarmac rally, he dominated Corsica. Also won in Mexico).

I do myself think Andreas would be a better long term bet than Meeke, but I don't think some team principals are as convinced as some fans on here. They have doubts about him, otherwise he would be locked into a long term contract right now.

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What an excellent post.

[sonnybobiche]

Well...., you could say Toyota for starters. Tried to sign Meeke, pushed the boat out with a multi year contract and offered millions a year in wages. Meeke visited the team base and talked with Makinen extensively. Then when Andreas was a free agent - begging for anyone to give him a drive - Tommi didn't bat an eyelid (neither did Citroen at first). Surely if Tommi really rated Andreas as highly as the man he wanted to build his team around (Meeke), he would've given Mikkelsen a drive when he was right under their noses?

Citroen will also go into next year (from what I've heard, unless something changes in the next month) with Meeke for a full season, and no Mikkelsen.

People can rightfully or wrongfully agree or disagree with your statement, but the above is what we have to base the evidence on so far.

Ofcourse it could be different now after Meeke's poor year but even still, Andreas as of yet hasn't done anything in his C3 outings that Meeke hasn't done as well (Meeke didn't just fight at the front on a tarmac rally, he dominated Corsica. Also won in Mexico).

I do myself think Andreas would be a better long term bet than Meeke, but I don't think some team principals are as convinced as some fans on here. They have doubts about him, otherwise he would be locked into a long term contract right now.

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Personally, I've never rated Meeke at all and I rate Mikkelsen about average, but let's be fair. The reason Meeke was getting super generous offers from Toyota and Mikkelsen got none is that in 2015/2016 Toyota was desperate to sign a winning driver. They had been courting everyone from Latvala to Loeb, even Petter Solberg. Finally after VW blew up they signed Latvala, with whom they had already been in talks for over a year. When Mikkelsen came looking for work, they didn't have a seat for him, hence no attention. Heck, they didn't even have a seat for Lappi at that point. So I don't think that reflects any real opinions that Tommi may have had of Meeke's vs Mikkelsen's ability.

[stefanvv]

Meeke didn't just fight at the front on a tarmac rally, he dominated Corsica.

Going into stage 7 when his engine blew up he was 1.5 secs ahead of Neuville. Hardly a domination really. People are still citing Corsica as the event where it "was not his fault", but lets be fair, with Neuville chasing him hard in the event where C3 was supposed to dominate with couple of stages to go, the mistake was lingering there somewhere and it only didn't happen because his car gave up first.

[er88]

Personally, I've never rated Meeke at all and I rate Mikkelsen about average, but let's be fair. The reason Meeke was getting super generous offers from Toyota and Mikkelsen got none is that in 2015/2016 Toyota was desperate to sign a winning driver. They had been courting everyone from Latvala to Loeb, even Petter Solberg. Finally after VW blew up they signed Latvala, with whom they had already been in talks for over a year. When Mikkelsen came looking for work, they didn't have a seat for him, hence no attention. Heck, they didn't even have a seat for Lappi at that point. So I don't think that reflects any real opinions that Tommi may have had of Meeke's vs Mikkelsen's ability.

I get your point there, but imo Makinen and Matton could easily have found space for Andreas at the start of the year if they *really* wanted to. My take is that they didn't feel he was good enough to warrant the extra cost/ sidelining much weaker drivers in Hanninen and Lefebrve.

Both teams should have signed him there and then and basically everyone on this forum thought so as well, but it needed a total Citroen crisis for one of the team managers to reconsider (and even then it's only been a deal for a few events). Doesn't give off the vibe that the two managers rate the guy anywhere near as highly as they probably should.

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[mknight]

I get your point there, but imo Makinen and Matton could easily have found space for Andreas at the start of the year if they *really* wanted to. My take is that they didn't feel he was good enough to warrant the extra cost/ sidelining much weaker drivers in Hanninen and Lefebrve.

Both teams should have signed him there and then and basically everyone on this forum thought so as well, but it needed a total Citroen crisis for one of the team managers to reconsider (and even then it's only been a deal for a few events). Doesn't give off the vibe that the two managers rate the guy anywhere near as highly as they probably should.

For Makinen it was a very specific situation, there was clear non-performance reasons for Latvala: He's Finish living close to the team base afaik, same manager as Makinen and experience from both Ford and VW to help with development, in the end rather obvious pick.

Replacing Hanninen with Mikkelsen at that point would be a bit risky imo, Hanninen was the only driver that was there during the whole car development and had a contract. Didn't look like they had so much many at that point. Prbly got more after good start of the season.

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As for Matton well his quote of not being interested in either Latvala or Mikkelsen "cause they are not French and don't have 4 titles and he has a driver lineup" will clearly go down in WRC history. It resulted in car with major issues (likely things would change if Latvala or Mikkelsen came and said it was crap (like Mikkelsen did in Sardinia)), Lefevbre crashing in every rally and first doing a decent result in Poland... and Meeke.

Also at this point Mikkelsen has not proved fast in any other car than VW... his outings with R5 showed it was not only the car.

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Comparing Meeke (since we are in this thread) and Mikkelsen is like comparing McRae and Burns in 2002-2003.

Meeke is win or crash (lately mostly the second part). With lots of stage wins results in "what ifs" all around.

Mikkelsen is quite different. Even in rallies which he won he barely sets 1-2 top stage times. Instead it's always very close to the stage winner but possibly with a good lead overall. This does not really inspire standing ovations from fans/jurnos following rallies stage by stage. Friday here in germany is an example. Even better example is one section in Poland. Mikkelsen beat Lefevbre by 10s on first stage, then was 1-2s behind in 3 stages after that. For the section that meant some 3-4s ahead. Yet the quote from WRC Radio was "Lefevbre is consistently faster".