Peugeot UK’s IRC Champions Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle are in Argentina, ready for the start of Round three of the 2010 Intercontinental Rally Challenge on Friday.
After their magnificent win in Brazil, Kris and Paul will start Friday night’s opening Super Special stage as favourites in their Peugeot 207 S2000 but they are realistic about their chances. It’s their first Rally Argentina, and they’ll face tough competition not only from the regular IRC runners but also a number of very fast local drivers. Kris, though, is unfazed by the threat:
"I don't tend to think about it too much. All I can do is believe in my own ability, go out and do my maximum - my safe maximum - on the first 3 stages - safe side of flat out - see what happens, and take it from there."
Rally Argentina is one of the great rallies of the world: this year it consists of 15 stages covering 240.02 km. Fans travel from all over South America to watch the action.
After Friday’s Super Special through the streets of Carlos Paz, about an hour’s drive from Cordoba, Saturday has a total of seven stages and Sunday a further seven before the final Super Special stage which will see two drivers go head-to-head against the clock.
Kris and Paul will face tough competition in Brazil from local hero and eight times Argentinean Rally Champion Federico Villagra, and Nasser Al-Attiya who finished second in this year’s Dakar Rally. Two other Peugeot 207 S2000s are also entered into the rally driven by Bruno Magalhaes and Daniel Oliveira.
Follow the day to day progress of Peugeot UK and Kris Meeke in this year’s Rally Argentina via the team’s Twitter link twitter.com/Peugeotrally, video podcasts and web-based Rally Radio hosted on the Peugeot.co.uk web site