How is Meeke really getting on at Toyota?

It's almost a year from the moment the World Rally Championship stood still. The moment news broke that Kris Meeke had been sacked.

A shunt in Portugal prompted one of Citroen's most bizarre press releases ever - it claimed to be dropping Meeke essentially for his own good - and over the following weeks the Northern Irishman's career was dissected, his sporting obituary written.

There was, the rallying world believed, no way back.

The rallying world was wrong. Badly wrong.

Plenty of teams (except the one in Versailles) wanted Meeke. In the end it was Toyota and Tommi Makinen that brought him back into the WRC fold.

Now, five rallies on from the deal that was supposedly never going to happen, four people closest to Meeke offer an insight into his next chapter.

For context, Meeke's first five rallies in a Toyota Yaris WRC have netted 54 points and fourth place in the championship. He and new co-driver Seb Marshall have won two powerstages, led for four stages and won seven of the 86 tests run so far this season.

There may be no rally wins yet, but look beyond the plain results and arguably the early part of 2019 has been Meeke's best start to a year yet - as the people behind him explain:

Tommi Makinen

Already we have seen Kris is a good team player.

It's very good, the cooperation with the team from Kris and Seb is really good; Kris is really a gentleman and a professional - everybody likes to work with him very much.

"It was definitely, definitely the right choice to bring Kris to us" Tommi Makinen

We have seen - and I know - there is plenty of potential from Kris. Unfortunately there have been some problems from us, some things like trouble we had with the [wheel] rims in Corsica.

When we have these sort of problems, we have to fix them and we know this will be good for Kris's confidence. We know he is very fast on Tarmac and we need to stop things [like the wheel rim problem] disturbing him. We know what we have to do for him.

Kris has settled with the car really quickly and we can see he has enjoyed the driving. I'm sure he is going to be very strong now. Kris and Seb are learning us as a team, but also we don't have so much experience of the championship. We are all learning a little bit.

I am sure it was definitely the right choice to bring Kris to us. He is already very fast and, like I said, he enjoys to drive. He has good experience, and when we brought him in we could see immediately he knows how to go fast in the car, he hasn't needed a long time to get used to things.

We are an open team, everything is a bit more relaxed and we want to keep things like this - and Kris is helping this.

Seb Marshall (co-driver)

I've known Kris for a fair while, but this year is the first time I've worked with him. My overriding impression of Kris is that he's taking a considered approach. That's not to say slow, but he's thinking his way through the season as a whole rather than rally by rally.

We've had misfortunes, punctures and things like that already, but Sweden was really impressive for me.

We weren't feeling that confident on Saturday afternoon and we were up against it a bit in terms of road position, then there was a moment or two. We could see all the mistakes other people were making and, at that point, [for us] it was: "Let's just take a second here..."

To me - and it might sound like slightly perverse logic - I was pleased to see that. He was thinking about the bigger picture, which was good, especially when he hadn't been doing any rallies for seven or eight months.

Every driver is competitive and Kris wasn't being a chicken, it was just about playing a percentage game early on and it worked - we're fourth in the championship without a podium. It's been a case of not forcing it and that's what we're trying to focus on.

I think I've slotted in quite well with Kris: he's a very straightforward guy to work with and I think I am too.

And the team set up has worked well for us. With Tommi at the helm, he knows exactly what the emotions are for the crews during the rallies and if you're having a bit of a shit day then he's not about to beat up on you; it's an understanding you get from having competed.

I know Kris feels really comfortable in this environment.

Marc Germain (physio)

Kris learned something about himself in that time away. It's always quite difficult to change the man completely, but he's worked a lot [on this].

Kris thought his career was out. He had time before he joined Toyota to think about what he wanted to achieve and when he got this contract, he was so happy. He knew he had to change something.

The speed he has had from the beginning, but now we try to help him with the consistency. And it really changed, energetically it's so different - it's completely open and in a good way.

"He is quite a closed guy, he doesn't let many people in. But he's also a really good guy. And a very fast guy" Marc Germain, Meeke's physio

At the beginning of the season it took some time for Kris to learn about the car and maybe there was some frustration because he wanted to make the result - but this is the problem with Kris.

He is completely more relaxed in Toyota; it's a different man. I had stopped working in the WRC after I stopped with Citroen, but I stayed in contact with Kris and when he got this contract he asked me if I would come [with him to Toyota].

I know nothing about driving or about the sport, this is not my job to tell him: "Ahh, you have to do that or this or that to go quick..."

I have to work with him to give him inner confidence. We made a big step. We talk about which way he wants to go. You know he is quite a closed guy, he doesn't let many people in. But he's also a really good guy. And a very fast guy.

Tom Fowler (chief engineer)

It was really exciting for everybody in the team when we knew Kris was coming. We've all seen how good his pace is and we're a team who like to have drivers capable of winning: we're not about having one driver who's doing the winning and one who's driving for no reason, so Kris fitted that bill perfectly.

To have another driver capable of winning is great and everybody was behind Kris from beginning.

It was a difficult one for Kris, he came from a different organisation and a different style of car - everything changed for him when [he left Citroen], but as soon as he arrived with us he did some really good testing with us. And that gave him good confidence that the car was where he needed it to be.

The car worked well for Kris, but maybe there was a little bit of good fortune that the set up from the other drivers suited him quite nicely and he got confidence very quickly.

I think he's having one of his best seasons ever this year. There have been some, let's say, difficulties technically. Kris has had some incredible stage times and then there might have been a technical thing or a stage where you can see he's just getting used to driving this car.

Whenever you get a new driver with a new driving style you get stresses in the car that you haven't seen before from the other drivers - that's the nature of the thing.

One area everybody knows varies a lot between the drivers is how much energy they're putting into the braking system - by no means is it a good or a bad thing to see the sort of heat drivers get in the brakes. This is a motorsport-wide phenomenon and Kris puts quite a lot of heat into the brakes, and we're working through each test to give him the brake cooling he needs.

But this is good - the improvements we will make help make the car more efficient and quicker for the other guys as well.

Autosport's verdict

In 2016, '17 and '18 Kris Meeke scored a podium finish from the first three rallies of his season. In two of those three years, he won in that time.

So far, 2019 has yielded a pair of sixths, a fifth, ninth and fourth.

And yet the positivity, enthusiasm and confidence in the circle surrounding Meeke goes way beyond anything we've seen before.

We might have said this before, but Kris genuinely looks to have turned a corner. And there's no turning back, not even if he drops it in Chile this week or Portugal at the end of the month.

Not only has he seen the light, he's seen a bigger picture and a future he's ready, willing and able to buy into. That's the difference: he likes the people, loves the car.

Such is the succour in the Toyota Gazoo Racing squad that Meeke has stopped chasing the moment; stopped trying to win every rally on every corner.

His relationship with Seb Marshall is strong and getting stronger, and the team listens and looks to him. And Kris listens, looks and learns from Tommi Makinen.

So, what's possible this year? The championship? Who knows? Team-mate Ott Tanak is 28 points off the lead and Meeke is 28 points off Tanak. Anything and everything is possible.

Ideally, Meeke will bed into the Makinen-led squad further, learn the Yaris inside out, bag some wins, a two-year contract and set about 2020 as a real-deal title contender.