Meeke wins Rali Ceredigion but Suninen clinches FIA European Rally Championship

Kris Meeke and Noel O’Sullivan won the 2026 JDS Machinery Rali Ceredigion following a spellbinding performance across all three days.

The duo finished 38.6 seconds ahead of Teemu Suninen and Antti Haapala, which was enough for Suninen to claim the FIA European Rally Championship, with Mikołaj Marczyk and Szymon Gospodarczyk in third.

Heading into the final four stages, Meeke held a 20.5 second advantage. Sunday’s opening stage was cut short after an accident involving Jakub Matulka and Damian Syty.

On the next, Suninen spun and nosed into a hedge, damaging the cooling system of his Skoda Fabia.

“What a weekend, honestly, big thanks to everyone,” said Meeke. Everyone who got me here, all the sponsors, KES, Toyota, Melvyn Evans Motorsport, what an incredible job.

“It’s so enjoyable when the package is right. To feel like that in the car, to get that real flow state again with the Michelin tyres on a good car, I really feel at home – delighted.”

Somewhat remarkably, this result is the five-time World Rally Championship rally winner and 2009 Intercontinental Rally Challenge victor’s maiden win in the FIA ERC as an ERC-registered driver. It’s also Meeke’s first victory in the United Kingdom since 2007.

After his time loss, Suninen’s focus changed to sealing the overall FIA European Rally Championship title, doing so as he crossed the finish line of SS16 Ty Glyn 2.

“It’s amazing; on Wednesday I couldn’t believe that we could be on this pace as I was quite sick,” said Suninen. “In the end, we managed to do a good job and learned a lot.

“These conditions are super tricky. It’s been a really good season for us and generally doing a good job on Tarmac.”

The event also hosted two rounds of the British Rally Championship. Max McRae and Cameron Fair won round four, with Meirion Evans and Dale Furniss taking round five.

Osian Pryce and James Morgan finished second across the first two days, only to retire with a gearbox issue on Sunday. All three of these crews can still win the BRC title with one event remaining.

In the Historic event, also part of the FIA European Historic Rally Championship, the Ford Escort of Dyfrig James and Trystan Evans closed to within 1.4 seconds of eventual winners Maciej Lubiak and Grzegorz Dachowski.

The Porsche 911 crew extended their lead to 5.2 seconds on the final stage to hold on. Welsh pair Andy Davies and Owain Davies completed the podium in third.

Lubiak said: “A huge thanks to the fans, the organisation and the spectators. It was great to be here and the rally was fantastic. Very tricky, fast and technical. Respect to all other competitors too, we had a big fight until the end with James and Evans.

“We are happy we got all the victories in the Historical event and FIA EHRC.”

The National Rally was won by Rhys Wyn Davies and Gerwyn James in their Welsh-built Darrian GTR+. They finished nearly two minutes ahead of Dylan Davies and Mark Glennerster in a Skoda Fabia R5, with Ian Bainbridge and Ross Whittock’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 a further 46 seconds behind in third.

Davies said: “This win means a lot to me; it’s my local rally and it’s an amazing feeling. The pressure was on this morning when the rain was hitting my window.

“I thought I was going to lose out a lot to the four-wheel-drive cars on the first stage, but I pushed on really hard and we took a big chunk out of them. That was the hard work done then, so we were happy with that.”

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