THE SUNSHINE ISLAND OF MADERIA IS THE STAGE FOR THE NEXT ROUND OF KRIS MEEKE’S IRC TITLE DEFENCE
RALI VINHO MADEIRA: 5–7 AUGUST
Peugeot UK’s Kris Meeke and co-driver Paul Nagle will start today creating their pace notes for the fast and twisty tarmac stages of this year’s Vinho Rally of Madeira.
The island of Madeira lies approximately 622 miles south west of Lisbon in the Atlantic Ocean. Madeira is one of two inhabited islands which make up the Madeira Archipelago. For the next six days the island will become home to the eighth round of the 2010 Intercontinental Rally Challenge.
Last year was the second time the IRC visited Madeira and the challenging nature of the island’s twisty mountain roads became the stage for a titanic battle between Peugeot and Fiat, to see which car could master the island stages. In the end Fiat took the laurels by a mere 3.5 seconds after a total of 21 stages.
Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle, who had never driven on the island before, finished a very creditable fifth behind the four front running drivers who all had experience of the specialist nature of the island’s stages.
This year the Peugeot UK team returns with all the experience they picked up last year and with a number of revisions to their Peugeot 207 S2000 to improve its performance over the fast tarmac roads.
Kris is looking forward to returning to Madeira. “This event was completely new to me last year, I was favourably impressed but I couldn’t manage any better than fifth overall. The stages are very difficult and most of the corners are blind. It’s hard to find the ideal lines, the ideal braking points and the moment when you need to turn in, the first time you do this rally. Hopefully, last year’s experience will be a big help this time around. Last year we did not choose the best gear ratios and this year we will not be caught out a second time, and I have every intention of fighting for a win this weekend.”
The rally will be contested over a total of 21 special stages, covering a distance of almost 187 miles. Due to the twisty nature of the stages a good set of pace notes is paramount, so Kris and Paul’s task today and tomorrow is to achieve this prior to the start of the rally on Thursday.
Thursday will see the rally kick off with a short super special stage along the sea front in the capital Funchal, before the crews tackle six repeated stages on Friday and four on Saturday.
The rally starts on Thursday 5th August and finishes on Saturday 7th August.
