The rally they won in such dominant style last year.

Kris and Paul will start the rally as favourites in their Peugeot 207 S2000 but will face tough competition not only from the regular IRC runners but also a number of very fast local drivers.

The previous round in Monte Carlo was held on icy and snow covered asphalt roads, a total contrast to the fast following gravel roads the crews will face now in Brazil.

“Some may argue, but I think the stages in Brazil are amongst the fastest gravel roads in the world, faster even than Finland in places. Like Finland, there are lots of blind crests, and in one way they are even tougher, with trees overgrowing the road in places.” commented Peugeot UK’s driver Kris Meeke.

Rally Internacional de Curitiba consists of 15 stages covering 219 km and is one of the shortest rallies on the IRC calendar. It starts today with the Prologue at 18:30 UK time.

Friday sees the cars tackle seven stages to the west of the host town, Curitiba, and the same stages as were used in last year’s rally. Saturday sees two changes to last year’s stages and consists of a total of eight stages and a final super special stage which will see two drivers go head-to-head against the clock.

Kris and Paul will be joined in Brazil by fellow Brits, Guy Wilks and Phil Pugh in their Skoda UK backed car, as well as Skoda factory drivers, Jan Kopecky and Juho Hanninen.

Follow the day to day progress of Peugeot UK and Kris Meeke in this year’s Rally Internacional de Curitiba via the team’s Twitter link twitter.com/PeugeotNews