Meeke cautious before his first Dakar: “I arrive with a lot of humility”

The 2009 Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) champion will also perform his first steps in rally-raid. La marge s’annonce haute et l’ancien pilote officiel Citroën et Toyota en WRC known. “You are never sufficiently ready for the Dakar, especially for your first time. I was supposed to do bajas and the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge but everything was canceled, so I arrived without a test round. It's a big challenge. »

The former rally driver, who followed a few stages of the 2020 Dakar as a VIP to test the waters, will not apply the same recipes as in the WRC. " The rally, it's an absolute sprint, where you analyze the stages with on-board cameras. The Dakar is the exact opposite. In this sport, you have to use your eyes a lot more to read the field. Navigation plays a crucial role, he explains from his hotel room in Jeddah, the start and finish point of the 43rd edition of the Dakar.

Additionally, experience is important. We can clearly see that drivers with five, 10 or 15 starts are the best armed. So I arrive with a lot of humility. As a rookie, you especially want to see the finish, and that will be the case for me. »

Kris Meeke does not arrive at the Dakar by chance. As a sports connoisseur, he remembers « by Ari Vatanen (driving) the Peugeot and Citroëns in the late 1980s and early 1990s.” “My mentor, Colin McRae, also participated in the Dakar with Nissan (in 2004 and 2005, four stage victories Editor’s note) », specifies the Briton.

The five-time WRC winner also finds the French structure PH Sport, evocative of beautiful memories and a guarantee of serenity. “I only did a few days of driving with the Zephyr, seven days in total, but the team is very competent. It's like a family, I know the people on the team well because they accompanied me during the most successful season of my career in 2016 with the Citroën DS3 (victories in Portugal and Finland). »