Meeke makes plenty of appeal in Portugal

Rally Portugal: stage one
BT Sport 2, 7pm Thursday

Sebastien Ogier extended his lead in the world rally drivers championship by finishing fourth in Argentina last time, but for the first time this season he missed out on the podium there.

The four-time world champion has won in Portugal - host of this week's round of the title chase - on four occasions, but it is one of only three events he has failed to win in either of the last two years.

Thierry Neuville is the man on the move. The Hyundai racer has won the last two rallies and crashed out of big leads in two others he so he is the driver to beat.

The Belgian needed a little luck in Argentina though, as a mistake on the final stage proved costly for long-time leader Elfin Evans.

A better value bet could be last year's Portugal hero Kris Meeke.

The Citroen pilot vied for title favouritism in pre-season, but he has suffered from reliability issues and driving errors and the Northern Irishman made another early exit in Argentina.

Meeke won in Mexico in March and should be confident of going close to repeating last year's success.

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K Meeke
1pt 5-2 bet365, BoyleSports