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Citroen WRC team explains decision to axe 'not under control' Meeke

Citroen World Rally team principal Pierre Budar felt Kris Meeke was out of control and left him with no option but to dismiss the Northern Irishman.

Explaining his decision to terminate Meeke and co-driver Paul Nagle's contracts with immediate effect, Budar told Autosport his priority had to be turning Citroen's troubled season around and to look after the welfare of his crews.

Meeke, who sits eighth in the championship, crashed heavily on last week's Rally Portugal. The violent nature of that crash was the final straw for Budar.

"Because this is a dangerous sport, you have to be able to deal with this danger," Budar said.

"When you think about Portugal, you are in a situation when the car is perfect for the driver - you can refer to what Kris has said during the rally.

"The pacenotes were supposed to be perfect, it's the same pacenote that has been used in the same stage in previous years.

"I think this was at least the third time they went through this stage with the same note with no modification of that.

"And you have no pressure because the opposition open the road and your position in the ranking doesn't allow you to reach anything. Regarding all of this, you are supposed to be in a position when you are safe on the road.

"You know the result - meaning, it's not under control. We don't have control on the situation anymore. If we lose control then we can wonder what will be next."

Asked which other crashes Budar felt had compromised Meeke's safety, he replied: "I suppose you know better than I all the results of the rallies since 2014 when Kris started to drive for Citroen.

"If we only look at last year and this year, we have several examples of huge crashes for Kris when there was no pressure, when there is no reason to take so many risks that he would go out of the road."

Budar deflected criticism that the unpredictability of Citroen's C3 was to blame for some of the Meeke's crashes.

"OK, you can also consider the car's not so bad when he is able to win with it," he said.

"He won in Spain on a mix of Tarmac and gravel and he was able to win in Mexico, where he had a lot of luck.

"This year in Mexico, he was in second place without any pressure - he had a lot of time and [there] was just no reason why he made this mistake [tipping the car onto its side on Sunday morning] this year.

"You cannot only talk of the car being to blame - we can find a few example where he had the opportunity to deal with the car when there was no pressure.

"In that case you have to be able to deal with the car even when it is not perfect. As a driver, you have to consider how to get the car back safely when there is no reason to take all the risks."

Budar said the decision was taken following internal discussions from Monday until Thursday.

PSA chief Carlos Tavares and Citroen CEO Linda Jackson had input in the decision, and Meeke was told by telephone by Budar on Thursday afternoon, shortly before the announcement.

"You can expect we did this properly," said Budar, when asked about criticism of the style of the communication.

"I had Kris on the phone before the press release was sent. I can understand it's difficult for him to accept this decision and I can understand he is angry.

"I must say, in terms of people, I really appreciate Kris and Paul. They are really nice guys.

"I know we can see some quite difficult things in the press right now, but I want to say this is sad for me to deal with this - in terms of people, I really appreciate these guys."

Zdroj: autosport.com