Kris Meeke has taken a strong hold on the Portuguese championship

Kris Meeke claimed victory in a Hyundai Rally2 car at the Rali da Agua, held around the city of Chaves, near the Spanish border. Meeke won the race by a margin of 40.9 seconds ahead of the local driver Ricardo Teodosio. Pedro Almeida finished third, trailing the leader by a minute and a half.

The Northern Irishman was in a class of his own, setting the fastest time on seven of the rally’s eight special stages. With this win, Meeke took a strong hold on the Portuguese rally championship. He now leads the standings by 18 points heading into the season’s final round, which will take place in mid-October.

Meeke’s main challenger for the championship, Portugal’s Armindo Araujo, went off the road during the sixth special stage. Before his exit, Araujo was in second place, just over ten seconds behind Meeke.

“I’m sorry about Armindo, these things happen, but I have to take my hat off to him because he was incredibly fast! So this was not an easy victory,” Meeke said, according to the Portuguese site Ojogo.

“I had to keep pushing hard. I really enjoyed the rally stages. After all, in Portugal there are also good engineers building roads!”

Araujo was leading the Portuguese rally championship before the weekend’s race, as the previous two rounds were poor for Meeke. Now, the championship is no longer in the veteran’s own hands.

“I have a clear conscience, I was giving it my all, because I knew I had to attack to put pressure on Meeke. By adopting such a high pace, it was obvious that I was taking risks and, unfortunately, I went off the road. Now, we have to forget what happened and think about the next rally and the possibility we still have of winning the title,” Araujo told.

The 45-year-old Meeke also competed in part of the Portuguese rally championship last year. He came in to replace Craig Breen, who tragically passed away during testing for the WRC Rally Croatia.

Rali da Agua, results: