Thoughts on Kris Meeke's Recent Performances?

[er88]

He won't be happy with himself and he's underperformed, nobody can deny that. However the championship was lost after Corsica, and after that car error they've purely been targeting wins. That's the instruction from the team and all Meeke wants to do himself.

The first two events were right offs from the team due to set up and testing mistakes, but he then won in Mexico.
In Corsica that C3 looked at home on the tarmac (surprise surprise), and he was in control out in front and beating Ogier and Neuville on pure pace on tarmac. When has that ever happened to Seb?
In Argentina he was closest to evans and running in second before both C3s had massive issues with the same compression. That also has to be classed as a mistake by Meeke too though, as I read that he maybe approached it too fast? However Citroen as a team have acknowledged they have big suspension issues, and have confirmed they have an update coming later in the year to fix the "problems".
Again in Portugal, Meeke was on the pace and either Meeke or Paddon were about to take the lead of the rally, but a really stupid error ended his chances. That mistake, along with his 2nd crash in Argentina were needless.

So i personally don't think we need to go too overboard about Meeke just yet. He's always been a very fast driver prone to errors, but there have been other mitigating circumstances this year on top of his own performance. Despite that, the margins are still very small and Meeke more than likely would've been the first driver to win two events this year - if his engine didn't blow up in Corsica. The reason why i feel there's a huge reaction to his low pts tally is because too many people expected way too much from him and the returning Citroen. I mean, he was favourite for the championship with the bookies ffs. That's where the money was going....

The question now is; does Meeke force himself to drive at 95% and take a few 3rd and 4th places like Sordo and Tanak have been doing this season? Or seeing that he has nothing to lose, will he keep driving at 100% looking for wins (which is what Citreon's sole objective is for this year)? Maybe having Andreas as a team mate now will push him to up his game....