Rally Italia Sardinia 2017

[mknight]

Mikkelsen is 10 years younger than Meeke.

[itix]

He's not exactly young, is he? This is his last big chance I think, and if he keeps flopping like he has been this season, I would be worried if he's still in the team next year, let alone 2019...

A contract is a contract... we can see that with Lefebvre. Meeke had a spell of non-crashing, but if you look at the onboards he is having tiny moment and lucky escapes in almost every event (and many times more than once), even those he finish and win.

I had hopes for this season... now not so much. I am very impressed by Matton for keeping his calm in all of this. He has put a lot of faith in Meeke after all.

[itix]

I don't envy Matton now actually. He has got to be under a lot of pressure from above. The choice to hire Lefebvre and Meeke was his after all.

[René]

Citroën Racing‏ @CitroenRacing

#WRC #RallyItalia
We sadly have to confirm that @krismeeke and @paulnagle1 won't restart @Rally_d_Italia, as the roll cage is damaged...

[AnttiL]

Mikkelsen is 10 years younger than Meeke.

Yeh, he's almost 38. Solberg and Loeb retired at that age, Grönholm and Mäkinen at 39. The youngest big names to retire were Biasion and McRae at 36 and Hirvonen at 34.

EDIT: for comparison, Latvala is now 32 and Ogier will be 34 this year.

[mknight]

I had hopes for this season... now not so much. I am very impressed by Matton for keeping his calm in all of this. He has put a lot of faith in Meeke after all.

Matton should be more worried about his own seat.

I will again repeat the comments when 3 VW drivers became available:

"I have not spoken with Sebastien. It's for him to decide what he wants to do.

"It's his decision to take about the future, but I want to make clear that there is no idea in this team to change the driver line-up we have made."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/126956

Asked if he would take a call from Ogier's team-mates, Matton added: "I would not say I would not take the call from Jari-Matti Latvala or Andreas Mikkelsen, of course I will - I am a polite guy!

"But the story is different for them: they are not French and they don't have the world title."

[Watson]

Funny to see how such a bad village team as Toyota (Quote from mr N.O.T) is doing such a good job with only dogs driving their cars

I don't want to be hating but if anything else than Hyundais and Fords end up on the podium on Sunday it would still be a big surprise for me.

[KKS]

Come on, Meeke has been like this always. He had some shorter periods without crashes but otherwise a sort of overdriving has been typical for all his career. With the current situation with seemengly uncompetitive Citroën it brough back memories to his years in Peugeot in IRC. It was exactly the same. He was pushing and crashing and people kept saying it was because Peugeot was crap compared to Škoda. Not saying it wasn't but it feels like a real deja vu now.

When I watch onboards from Meeke and follow Paul pacenotes - I always notice that callout distance so short, any slight delay and Meeke doesn't know where to drive. And I suppose that 50% of crashes - because of it.

[Lead]

Not surprised about speed of Mikkelsen. Not his favorite rally, completely new car for him, there is no way he could preform better than it is now. And he is last Citroen left...

[TWRC]

A contract is a contract... we can see that with Lefebvre. Meeke had a spell of non-crashing, but if you look at the onboards he is having tiny moment and lucky escapes in almost every event (and many times more than once), even those he finish and win.

I had hopes for this season... now not so much. I am very impressed by Matton for keeping his calm in all of this. He has put a lot of faith in Meeke after all.

We are not even through the first day, and he's already lost 2 of his 3 cars, his lead driver is in shambles, etc etc... I think Matton has a good poker face, but he must be feeling very hot under the collar.