Kris Meeke Crashes WRC Car In Mexico, Still Wins The Rally Like A Boss

The Northern Irishman was driving a 2017 Citroen C3 WRC in the Power Stage of Rally Mexico. He and his co-driver, Paul Nagle, managed to build a significant gap in front of the next competitor, and they were driving in the last stage of the race.

About one kilometer away from the place where the stage was supposed to end, he ran off the road in a wide right-hand turn. From there, his Citroen C3 WRC flew through some bushes and crashed into a Volkswagen Passat CC.

The race could have ended there for Meeke, but the driver quickly found that the car was still running, so he decided to find his way back on the course.

The whole surprise of the situation was not that the car had not rolled over. Instead, it was that Meeke had “landed” in an improvised parking lot. He then had to find his way through the parked cars, hopefully without crashing into any of them.

A stroke of luck brought the Northern Irishman back on track, and he managed to complete the rally. He won by a gap of 13.8 seconds in front of his closest competitor, WRC Champion Sebastien Ogier.

Belgian driver Thierry Neuville captured third place, with a 59.7-second gap from the winner, as he and Nicolas Gilsoul, his co-driver, lost valuable time over a fuel filter issue.

Meeke later explained that unexpected bumps in the road had made him go off course. Upon reaching the end of the stage, the driver did not know the result of his effort, and he feared that all had been lost.

After stopping his Citroen C3 WRC, Meeke lost his focus and had to be helped by his co-driver to get on the roof of his car to celebrate one of the most dramatic finishes in many years of WRC. This event reminded us of Colin McRae’s flat-out style, but also of Carlos Sainz’ championship-losing mishap in 1998

While we have nothing against any WRC driver, we can only hope that racing will provide more of this kind of breath-taking action for its spectators. Rallying is a fantastic sport, but watching it is not as easy as Formula 1 or other branches of motorsport, but it is well worth in the end.