LOEB IN COURSE TO HIS FOURTH CONSECUTIVE VICTORY IN ARGENTINA

The second day of the 28th Rally of Argentina, round four of the FIA World Rally Championship, showed that the fast special stages of Calumuchita Valley turned out to be as rough as the roads on the first day. Rain and mud made things even harder for the drivers, but did not stopped Sebastien Loeb who stayed at the top of the general standings. The first stage of day 2, Santa Monica-Amboy, the deep water splashes and a considerable amount of mud made Loeb uncomfortable.

The Citroen C4 could not get used to the road conditions and the Frenchman lost 15.5s to Petter Solberg who was on ahead of his team-mate Chris Atkinson in the general standings. The Norwegian was determined to get as close to the rally leader as possible. Solberg won four stages while the other Subaru Impreza won two. Both drivers’ efforts were not good enough to catcg Loeb, who finished the second day with a difference of 1m19s6/10 over the runner up. Stobart Ford’s Gigi Galli, started in 4th place but had to retire during the midday service due a damaged exhaust. His team-mates, Henning Solberg and Mathew Wilson, also retired with the latter having almost the same problem as Galli. These retirements made things easier for Citroen’s Dani Sordo, who ended the day 4th in the overall classification. Despite of the problems suffered on day one, BP Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen is now sixth overall. His team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala was excluded from the competition after arriving out of the time limit allowed to SS14 check point, due to ignition problems. He will restart tomorrow under SupeRally rules. Munchi´s Ford WRT had big hopes on Federico Villagra. However, the Argentine driver struggled today with problems in his Focus’ accelerator and exhaust. He finished the day eighth overall. Team-mate Luis Perez Companc did not restart today because he couldn’t reach the start of today’s leg on time. The young driver from Zimbabwe, Conrad Rautenbach, had a consistent day and finished fifth overall at the end of the leg. Meanwhile Suzuki didn’t have a good day at all when both their drivers retired from the rally. Toni Gardemeister had problems with the steering and the gearbox while Per-Gunnar Andersson broke the suspensión of the SX4. In the P-WRC, Austrian driver Andreas Aigner didn’t have any problems and was able to keep his overnight lead and stay ahead of his closest rival Nasser Al Attiyah, who took advantage of Marcos Ligato’s retirment and some problems with Sebastián Beltran to take second overall. Tomorrow the drivers will compete on the last day of the event which will have three special stages, starting with the classic Mina Clavero-Giulio Cesare at 9.13hs. Rally Argentina will conclude in Villa Carlos Paz with a podium close to the service park. The prize living ceremony will take place at 13.10hrs.