Prodrive Mini WRC

[noel157]

Hi Noel, could you correct Kris please, seems he thinks that it was an over optimistic note that caused the crash.

I incorrectly thought he had recced all events last year, seems strange to me that he didnt, its not competing but it still helps to build knowledge.

Yall get a bit prickly when any says anything about Kris, I think for this forum anything said has been very mild, there are a lot of people who wish him well, just some are more blinkered than others.

Nobody gets "prickly" about Meeke here and most of us are not blinkered. There were a few over the years who repeatedly said, and I quote, "Meeke will never get a drive", "Meeke doesn't deserve a seat" etc, etc. Then all the nonsense about the Mini programme being rubbish, the car is too tall, Prodrive couldn't build or run a car that could survive a 5 km drive to the local supermarket and back on a Saturday morning. Next we had the rubbish about the short suspension travel etc, etc. Anybody who's been here will have read all that c-rap. The best one was somebody's brother who saw the car in Prodrive and instantly knew that it would be a complete failure.....
Sure, Meeke had his problems in JWRC, his speed and raw talent was never an issue and most saw that but he obviously did have accidents when he really should have been on the podium. Ok, many good drivers have their accidents but many confuse DNF statistics and automatically assume poor driving no matter the cause of the DNF and this seems to added to Meeke's reputation, deserved or otherwise.
As for his WRC career, as I said earlier, two drives over 6 years is hardly much experience. With Mini he's had 4 DNFs out of 4 starts. Looks bad doesn't it? Except 3 were mechanical and of course the off in Alsace. With that off it happened as I described, first pass he felt he lost time, 2nd pass the different approach was wrong. Most drivers modify a note when they feel it was not appropriate on the first pass, not rocket science. The crew are hardly going to make a mental note to approach a particular corner a few hours and 30kms later.............
Meeke got his seat with Prodrive the hard way, no money, no sugar daddy, no big backers. He's there because DR wants him there. For what he can do behind the wheel and his engineering/development ability, an unusual combination these days. So give the guy a chance to prove himself, I believe he will earn the respect of many more fans in due course.

[Nornbugger]

Nobody gets "prickly" about Meeke here and most of us are not blinkered. There were a few over the years who repeatedly said, and I quote, "Meeke will never get a drive", "Meeke doesn't deserve a seat" etc, etc. Then all the nonsense about the Mini programme being rubbish, the car is too tall, Prodrive couldn't build or run a car that could survive a 5 km drive to the local supermarket and back on a Saturday morning. Next we had the rubbish about the short suspension travel etc, etc. Anybody who's been here will have read all that c-rap. The best one was somebody's brother who saw the car in Prodrive and instantly knew that it would be a complete failure.....
Sure, Meeke had his problems in JWRC, his speed and raw talent was never an issue and most saw that but he obviously did have accidents when he really should have been on the podium. Ok, many good drivers have their accidents but many confuse DNF statistics and automatically assume poor driving no matter the cause of the DNF and this seems to added to Meeke's reputation, deserved or otherwise.
As for his WRC career, as I said earlier, two drives over 6 years is hardly much experience. With Mini he's had 4 DNFs out of 4 starts. Looks bad doesn't it? Except 3 were mechanical and of course the off in Alsace. With that off it happened as I described, first pass he felt he lost time, 2nd pass the different approach was wrong. Most drivers modify a note when they feel it was not appropriate on the first pass, not rocket science. The crew are hardly going to make a mental note to approach a particular corner a few hours and 30kms later.............
Meeke got his seat with Prodrive the hard way, no money, no sugar daddy, no big backers. He's there because DR wants him there. For what he can do behind the wheel and his engineering/development ability, an unusual combination these days. So give the guy a chance to prove himself, I believe he will earn the respect of many more fans in due course.

this is why I have been a Meeke fan since way before it was cool to be, I still am. Sardinia and Finland were true car problems in my mind, he was off in Germany and lucky only to collect grapes, he had 2 spins I believe before his off in Alsace, certainly on one of them he was lucky to get away with it. He himself has blamed note distances for a couple of errors, this at this level seems odd to me, corner speeds are subjective and part of the art, distances are an absolute.

Re the Mini haters, theres a lot of top engineers on here in their dreams, my concern for the Mini that I never posted before now was that I think marketing men rather than engineers made the decision on which version to use and possibly created a compromise from the off. This possibly is bs, just a little thought I had

[Tomi]

Emotive claptrap.

Yes Colin was exciting and I too was a big fan, but most exciting ever? People who watched Ari, Markku or Henri might not think so.

Part of rallying died with Colin? Really? What part?

Agree, he is the most over rated driver ever, the Beckham of rally, much noise but little substance, the really great drivers are in their own class.

[AndyRAC]

Over rated?? You don't win 25 WRC events if you're no good..

[N.O.T]

there is a difference between "no good" and overated.....

He was a great driver (great enough to become champion) but not something really special like Loeb, Kannkunen even Makinen and Gronholm.

[Doon]

Must say I have to agree. He was a brilliant driver, and the most popular worldwide mainly due to his computer game, but he there was never a time when no one could touch him. Since i've watched rallying Makinen had a period...well most of the late 90's where he was untouchable, Gronholm was in 2000 and especially 2002, Loeb was from 2005 until this season. Colin always tried hard, maybe too hard, and thats not because he wanted to entertain a few fans but because his competition was usually better.

I think it's similar with Solberg, he's got character and won a single world championship......and the most important factor was that he was in a Subaru, therefore everyone loves him and thinks he's the best ever.

Burns for me was a different situation, he was consistant and gathered points to win (...bit of a Hirvonen) but I always thought he was quicker than Mcrae anyway. Just because he got less wins it didn't make him a slower driver, as he came close to winning the WRC more times than Mcrae.

Can't believe I've joined in with this rant anyway, it's a little pointless. Oh well that's what lunch breaks are for!

[dimviii]

Prodrive couldn't build or run a car that could survive a 5 km drive to the local supermarket and back on a Saturday morning. Next we had the rubbish about the short suspension travel etc.

while i agree at most you said,don t be in a hurry to say the mini is good.Its too early to see if it fast or reliable.About the suspension how do you know that the travel is enough? FRom inside Ohlins i have listen very different.

[noel157]

while i agree at most you said,don t be in a hurry to say the mini is good.Its too early to see if it fast or reliable.About the suspension how do you know that the travel is enough? FRom inside Ohlins i have listen very different.

I'm not sure exactly what you are saying? The car is not good? The car is clearly good in terms of what it has managed to achieve over 4 events in it's development period which it has just begun. Is it a great car? Time will tell, who knows but we can only go from what we've seen so far. There's certainly a lot more to come over the next 12 months. I don't know if the suspension arrangement will continue in it's existing form or how the team are thinking about changing it but so far seems to be ok, but that's only my view.
Yes, reliability is an issue but it's not a big issue considering and the faults so far have been very minor.

[focus206]

sorry, I couldn't resist:
World Rally Championship - News - Michelin’s safety campaign gets MINI support
the image makes me laugh

[Gregor-y]

Nobody gets "prickly" about Meeke here and most of us are not blinkered. There were a few over the years who repeatedly said, and I quote, "Meeke will never get a drive", "Meeke doesn't deserve a seat" etc, etc. Then all the nonsense about the Mini programme being rubbish, the car is too tall, Prodrive couldn't build or run a car that could survive a 5 km drive to the local supermarket and back on a Saturday morning. Next we had the rubbish about the short suspension travel etc, etc. Anybody who's been here will have read all that c-rap.

Meeke had an excellent run in the IRC so I can't see why anyone would begrudge him at least a trial in a WR car. However, after the hash Prodrive made of Subaru's cars from 2006 on and with what looked like a hands off attitude from BMW it was hardly rash to speculate the MINI wasn't going to be all that good. I'm happy to see Prodrive looks to have gotten the MINI right and think Meeke's a good choice to campaign it. Aside from the British(German) car/British(Irish) driver emotional aspect, I'm sure as a new entry his contract was pretty reasonable. I don't think we can judge Meeke too much until we see what the MINI can do next year.