Why Meeke can beat Ogier to the 2017 WRC title

That last drop of champagne in the bottom of the bottle's gone a little flat. The balloon's are a touch deflated. Jyvaskyla's party is over for another year. Kris Meeke? Still smiling.

Hardly surprising. Fifteen hours after he stormed the Finnish fortress that is world rallying's true superpower, he's stepping aboard a private jet bound for Portugal. And an even faster rally car. Wheels up, the destination's dialled to 2017.

Celebrations were long and loud on Sunday night, but they could have been longer. And louder. Becoming the first British driver to win Finland was a career-defining achievement for Meeke. But he's determined it won't define his career.

Meeke wants more. Finland took a beating on Sunday, but today that history-making and quite extraordinary win has been cast firmly to the back of the mind. Today's about the next targets: Sebastien Ogier, Volkswagen and the 2017 World Rally Championship.

When Meeke's mentor Colin McRae captured his first RAC Rally win in 1994, he stood on the podium and talked of his desire to return in 12 months to fight for the title. There's symmetry. That was McRae's third world rally win. Sunday was Meeke's third.

Is it realistic to think of Meeke and co-driver, Irishman Paul Nagle, as championship challengers next season?

Absolutely.

And if they continue as they are, they're in danger of shifting themselves from the bracket of potential contenders to, dare I say it... no, let's not. Let's just say the stars are aligning nicely heading south from Dungannon through Killarney to Versailles on to the Alps in January.

Twelve months ago, Meeke was running right at the sharp end of Rally Finland for the third successive season. But, for the second time in those three years, he made a mistake, dropped the DS 3. More potential apparently wasted.

Raw speed was never in doubt. It was the consistency that called everything into question. Dangling a carrot's all well and good, but it can be counterproductive.

All Meeke wanted was a shot. He got rally-by-rally and delivered pace; he got a season and delivered points, but the big prize was going to take management commitment to match the sort Meeke was delivering on the stages.

Last December, he got it: a three-year deal to develop an all-new Citroen World Rally Car and an opportunity to return one of the WRC's biggest and most successful brands to the top of the tree.

What happened? Meeke's confidence grew immediately, even though in the short-term he was pegged to a part-programme this year while developing Citroen's C3 WRC for the 2017 regulations shake-up.

Of the four rallies he's started this year, he could have won Monte Carlo, should have won Sweden and did win Portugal and Finland.

There's still pressure, of course there is, but it's nothing like the knife-edge, one-shunt-from-oblivion type burden beneath which Meeke has driven for the past three years while trying to secure his future.

Three years? Actually make that his entire career, two Intercontinental Rally Challenge seasons of job security with Peugeot UK notwithstanding.

Winning is never easy in the world championship, winning in Finland almost impossible if you're not born and brought up east of Sweden, south of Norway, north of Estonia and west of Russia.

Last week was undoubtedly more straightforward for Meeke without the potential complications of a championship campaign. Pressure-free, by his own admission, he also had the rub of the green in terms of running order on day one.

I guess that depends on your take on straightforward; the DS 3 didn't wind itself up to sixth gear on those stages. Somebody had to take it to the limiter, then sit at 202km/h - or 125mph if you like - and take off between the trees.

That somebody was Meeke. And he did it perfectly. As one local said, he did it like a Finn. In Jyvaskyla, that's as good as it gets.

Let's not forget, Meeke is now officially the fastest driver ever to win a WRC round after he broke Latvala's record in Finland last year for the highest average speed. When Meeke crossed the final flying finish on Sunday, he'd averaged 78.66 - 0.74mph faster than the Finn.

What's more, on the season's ultimate speed test, Ouninpohja, Meeke smashed Ogier's record by 12.4s. And that was with zero previous experience of running the road in that direction.

So, he has the skill, the speed, the nerve and the balls to do it. His wins in Argentina last year and Portugal earlier this year showed he's got the guile and gumption as well.

Experience? He's not short on that. He's started rounds such as Spain and GB eight times.

He's slightly weaker in the Americas, where he's done Argentina and Mexico's WRC round twice (he does have one additional IRC start in Carlos Paz) and Sweden next year will only be his fourth time in the snow.

What's more, Meeke has the attitude of a WRC title contender. It's in the walk, the demeanour, the approach. He's always been a chest out, stand-aside-coming-through kind of driver - something that has been conveniently misinterpreted as arrogance in the past.

But actually, it was born out of the fact that he learned pretty quickly that he had to look after himself. If he wanted it, he had to go get it.

He's matured into an excellent lead driver - one with a work ethic few drivers 10 years younger than him could match. How many of his contemporaries were in the pool training at 4.30am every day in Finland? And, by the time he dived in, he'd already pounded out the miles on the treadmill too.

There's nothing new in this being the realisation of a lifetime dream, all drivers have that story to tell. But few land the dream after so many twists and turns in the road. Meeke has never deviated from his path, his own path.

When the money ran out at Mini and he was dropped two days before Christmas 2011, Meeke said nothing. He just tweeted: "Ever had the girl you love tell you she's going to work as a prostitute?"

Those who don't know Meeke criticised that comment. But that's what he's about, not quite a maverick, but he certainly knows - and is willing to speak - his own mind. How refreshing. How disappointing that some tried to dampen it down.

That tweet, for me, was a work of art.

It's his confidence in his own voice that has brought him into conflict with Sebastien Ogier. Few really challenge the champ in the way that Meeke and Hayden Paddon do. Meeke and Paddon have fought tooth and nail to get where they want to be, and nobody is going to tell them what to think and what to say.

Meeke's ability to get under Ogier's skin will be a strength next season. Everybody knows Ogier is sensational and almost unbeatable in terms of stage times.

But Meeke's more than a match for him in terms of mental strength; he'd never say so in public, but you can bet Meeke's mind is already full of beating Ogier down every road in 2017.

That's the men. What about their machines? Nothing has been able to sustain a challenge to Volkswagen since the Polo arrived in 2013. But that game is nearly over.

Next year will be closer than ever. Citroen's back with the right budget and the right, single-minded - the distraction of the World Touring Car Championship quietly forgotten - approach. The one that carried the Parisians to the kind of dominance even VW still aspires to in the WRC.

But what about the C3 WRC? Well, try this:

It's looking good. It's done rough gravel, smooth gravel and asphalt. And everybody's still smiling. Reliability has been good, even when tested in tough conditions.

With a year to focus solely on development, Citroen has been pouring in everything it learned from dominating the WRC in the 2000s plus a few aero and engine lessons from its crushing foray into the WTCC.

Citroen Racing's technical director Laurent Fregosi makes it sound very simple: "The approach is always the same: design hard-wearing, light components, while implicitly looking to adjust and lower the centre of gravity."

Watch that video again. 'Urgent' is the word that comes to mind.

For both man and machine.