The team manager of Skoda Motorsport, Pavel Hortek, says that Kris Meeke will not take part in Rallye Monte Carlo next year driving the new Fabia, but he does not close the door on last one's participation at Rally Sweden.
After Kris Meeke's departure from Toyota at the end of 2019, he never competed at the top level in World Rally Championship, but he managed to secure a deal with Skoda Motorsport. The Czech brand chose Meeke to develop the latest versions of Fabia Rally2 [evo and RS] and ran many kilometers testing these cars.
As Skoda faced supply issues with the production of Fabia RS, its debut was postponed for three months, but there is a possibility for Toksport to bring three Rally2 cars in Monte Carlo which will be driven by Marco Bulacia, Sami Pajari and Emil Lindholm. This delay may favored the brand from Mlada Boleslav as its drivers had the chance to spend more time developing this brand-new Fabia.
"Kris is our development driver, so he will come on the first day of the test to work on the setup for the car", Hortek said.
"We know there are some people who see that this is a setup test for Monte Carlo and they see Kris is coming – they think he is going to be doing the rally. Unfortunately not.
"As well as the setup work, this is also a development test – which is why Škoda Motorsport is there with Toksport.
"We are preparing the car for the future and for the tentatively nominated drivers in Monte Carlo.
"We would like to have Kris driving and I’m sure that Kris would like to drive also, but this is not our business.
"Skoda Motorsport is making the development of the car, but Serkan Duru and Toksport is the team which is running the program and the cars on the rally and we do not interfere with this at all.
"Maybe it’s possible, but definitely not in Monte Carlo or in Sweden, but maybe it’s something we will keep thinking about".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Skoda
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