Meeke to showcase JWRC Citroen C2 in Ulster Rally

Northern Irish ace, Kris Meeke, will give the Citroen Sport C2 Super 1600 its British Rally Championship debut in next month’s Ulster Rally (Sept 1-2).

Two time British Junior Rally champion Meeke, 27, and co-driver Glen Patterson, normally pilot the car in the FIA Junior World Rally Championship, and will be returning very much to their roots, as they hail from Dungannon, just 10 miles down the road from the two-day event’s Armagh base.

The Ulster Rally is one of the flagship events in the Tesco 99 Octane British Rally Championship, traditionally attracting one of the largest fields of World Rally Cars for a domestic event.

Despite the proximity of the event to his hometown, Meeke has only competed on the Ulster Rally once, in 2003, when he scored a class win and sixth overall on his way to the British Super 1600 title. That was his last outing in the BRC, as he graduated to the JWRC the following year.

“The Ulster Rally is going to be a very special event for me,” said the Citroen driver. “I’ve always had such amazing support from home but they don’t often get to see me drive so to bring a JWRC team to the event will be fantastic. It’s unrealistic to think that we’ll be able to compete with the WRC cars so our goal is to finish as high up in the BRC standings as possible.

“It’s all good experience for us and the team – you can test and test and test but nothing replicates competing on an event, so the more competitive kilometres we can do, the better.”

Meeke is currently 11th in the JWRC, having only taken part in two rounds, and will be supported by his works Citroen Sport team. His next JWRC rounds will be in Germany (August 11-13) and Finland (August 18-20).

Citroen dealer and part sponsor Charles Hurst in Belfast will be running a preview event at its premises on the Wednesday evening before the rally (Aug 30), at which Meeke, Patterson and the Citroen Sport team will be present along with the C2 S1600 and C2 R2 cars.

The Ulster Rally kicks off at 3pm on Friday, Sept 1, in Armagh city centre.