Kris Meeke’s title charge at the Portuguese Rally Championship took another blow as he finished 7th at Rali Vinho da Madeira.
The weekend didn’t start off greet for him as a 10mins penalty affect him on stage 1 and from there on in it was difficult to see him salvage any points from the event.
More issues for the Northern Irish Rally driver as the car had to be pulled up on stage 2 and afterwards he went offroad on stage 3 which put him dead last.
From there on in it became a test session for Meeke and Loudon who was in the co-drivers seat. Putting in consistency results helped him elevate up the points and secure him at least a top 10 finish out of 19 drivers eligible for the championship.
The event (within the Portuguese round) was won by Luís Ramalho in the Skoda Fabia Rally2.
It has been a difficult couple of rounds for Kris Meeke as he said he “didn’t deserve” to see his 100 per cent winning start to this season’s Portuguese Rally Championship ended by a suspected throttle failure at the Rali de Castelo Branco.
The mechanical issue reared its head on the antepenultimate stage – the repeat of the 11.31-mile run over ‘Chão da Vã to Sarzedas’ – costing him well over three minutes and with it the lead.
