Kris Meeke wins Rali Ceredigion on ERC return after 18 years as Suninen clinches title
Kris Meeke won the JDS Machinery Rali Ceredigion on his first European Rally Championship appearance in 18 years, finishing 38.6 seconds clear of Finland's Teemu Suninen across the closed roads of west Wales.
For Suninen, second place was enough. The 31-year-old clinched the 2026 FIA European Rally Championship title — rallying's continental series, one tier below the global World Rally Championship — with one round still to spare, having arrived in Ceredigion holding a 25-point lead over Lancia driver Andrea Mabellini (DirtFish). Suninen had said beforehand he was not putting himself under pressure to wrap things up (DirtFish). The standings did the heavy lifting.
Meeke, 47, drives a Toyota GR Yaris and has been far from idle since his last WRC season in 2019. He won the Portuguese Rally Championship in 2025 and turned in a strong run at June's Donegal International Rally. His previous ERC outing dated all the way back to Rally Poland in 2006 — a gap of two decades.
The rally itself had plenty of swing. Meeke set the early pace, fastest on the opening two Friday stages. Suninen then grabbed the overnight lead by 0.9 seconds after thousands of spectators packed the Welsh lanes for the night stages (FIA ERC). When Saturday morning arrived, Meeke struck back immediately — winning the opening stage to reclaim top spot, per FIA ERC, and never giving it up.
Suninen and co-driver Antti Haapala spun during the event and dropped to third at one point, according to Rali Ceredigion's official page, but recovered to reclaim second and seal the championship.
Behind the lead pair, Poland's Mikolaj Marczyk took third overall. Max McRae — nephew of the late 1995 world champion Colin McRae — finished fourth, claiming top honours in the British Rally Championship portion of the event, which ran as a joint round with the European series. Local favourite Meirion Evans completed the top five.
Osian Pryce's rally ended on the 14th stage with a mechanical issue, while William Creighton did not start after a crash at the previous round in the Czech Republic left his co-driver Liam Regan with a fractured leg.
What makes Meeke's victory resonate is the road to it. A five-time WRC rally winner who last competed at the global level in 2019, he has spent recent seasons rebuilding his career in national championships — Portugal, Ireland, now a one-off return to European competition on roads he knows well. To come back after 18 years away and win outright, against a field that included the newly crowned European champion, is no museum-piece performance. The pace was real, the margin was comfortable, and the stages through Ceredigion's hills and forests gave the crowd exactly the spectacle they came for.
