Peugeot UK and Kris Meeke head for the Azores for the next round of the IRC

Having not contested the last round of the IRC in Kenya, Peugeot UK's winning duo now head to the Azores for the fourth round of the IRC.

The volcanic islands of the Azores are situated in the Atlantic Ocean, 1,497 kilometers south of Lisbon and 3,898 kilometers from the east coast of North America. The rally will take place on Sao Miguel, the largest of the Azores islands.

Having won the Brazilian round of the IRC, being faced with another gravel round should enable Kris and Paul to exploit their obvious speed on this type of surface.

The entry list for the rally, however, will include no fewer than twelve S2000 cars, including six Peugeot 207 S2000s. Last year's winner Bruno Magalhaes will also be hoping to repeat his achievement in the Peugeot Total entered Peugeot 207 S2000.

Trying to break the Peugeot dominance on this year's IRC will be two factory Grande Puntos, driven by Anton Alen and Giandomenico Basso and a private entered Grande Punto driven by Bernardo Sousa. Team Skoda Motorsport will also be back after missing both the Brazilian and Kenya rounds with two Skoda Fabias, driven by Juho Hanninen and Jan Kopecky. The final S2000 runner will be Julien Maurin in the sole Volkswagen Polo S2000.

The rally begins with a super special stage on Thursday evening May 7th and finishes on Saturday May 9th. The competitors will complete a total of 18 stages with a total distance of 229.86 kilometres.

Kris and Paul started their preparation for the Azores four weeks ago with a two-day gravel test in France. Having not contested the Kenyan round of the IRC, it gave the duo the chance to get back in the car and experiment with suspension settings in readiness for their Azores outing.

During the test they completed a total of 400 km and Kris was very pleased with the results. "It's very difficult to make improvements when the car is so competitive and closely matched but we've been able to make a few changes for the Azores and I am very pleased with what we achieved because it was a very good test.," said Kris.

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Credits: JRC