Meeke unaffected by shakedown delay

Kris Meeke has played-down the incident on Rally Argentina’s shakedown stage that left his Peugeot 207 Super 2000 with broken steering.

Meeke was stranded by the side of the stage for more than two hours after striking a boulder with his car’s front-right wheel close to the finish of the practice course on Friday morning.

He said: “There was this massive boulder hidden under the grass which we didn’t spot in the recce. It caught the front-right wheel and broke the steering. It was just unfortunate, no big drama, and hopefully we’ve got a good set of pacenotes for the rally.”

Meeke proved that the off hadn’t affected his pace when he topped the times on Friday evening’s superspecial stage through the streets of Carlos Paz. He leads the rally by 1.4 seconds as a result