We’re genuinely surprised – and saddened – to hear that Colin McRae’s protégé, Kris Meeke, won’t be on the start line at next month’s Monte Carlo Rally for MINI.
According to Autocar, even though Meeke and his co-driver, Paul Nagle, have two years of a three year contract left to run, it appears that the Prodrive-run team’s budget won’t stretch that far, yet funds can, apparently, be found to keep Spaniard Dani Sordo for all 12 rallies. Unless a major sponsor comes forward, Meeke will be kept on purely for test and development purposes.
Perhaps BMW’s return to DTM is sucking up more money than the company had first envisaged, but it’s a shabby way to treat Kris, and a very sorry state of affairs when you realise that the second MINI John Cooper Works WRC car will be auctioned off, on an event-by-event basis, to anyone who can bring enough funding for a seat – just like those crappy no-hope F1 teams always at the back of the grid.
Kris summed his situation up perfectly on his Twitter page, by remarking: “Ever wonder what it would be like to have the girl you loved tell you she’s leaving you to go work as a prostitute?”
As far as we’re aware, Volkswagen Motorsport still needs drivers to pilot its Polo R WRC, Kris…
[Source: Autocar] (more…)
