Rally Argentina Day Two

Rally Argentina Day Two

2012 FIA WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP
RALLY ARGENTINA
(26 - 29 APRIL 2012)

28.04.2012

Reigning FIA World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb continues to head the leaderboard of Rally Argentina, the French Citroën driver 7.2 seconds ahead of team-mate Mikko Hirvonen. Dani Sordo, deputising for the injured Jari-Matti Latvala, is flying the flag for Ford and remains third overnight.

Despite today’s route being shorter than yesterday, crews still faced 166.54 kilometres of competition over two identical loops of three stages, before returning to Carlos Paz for a second run around the short super special stage.

Loeb started the day with the narrowest 0.1 second of a lead over Hirvonen and immediately set the fastest time in the opening stage, inching further ahead of his team-mate. However, the Finn fought back in the following stages to claim two fastest times and come within 2.1 seconds of the lead, before Citroën confirmed its two drivers would hold positions to the finish, such was their advantage over Sordo. The Spaniard, in his one-off drive for Ford, continues to impress but was largely on the wrong tyres each stage this morning, resulting in him gradually slipping further adrift of the Citroens.

Mads Østberg is in a lonely fourth position, the Norwegian over a minute adrift of Sordo and with over six minutes in hand to fifth-placed Martin Prokop. Sébastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen continue to run well in the Skoda Fabia S2000 cars run by Volkswagen Motorsport, Ogier now taking the advantage over his team-mate and the pair sixth and seventh respectively. After rolling yesterday, Thierry Neuville re-joined today and holds eighth, with fastest time in the super special stage. Petter Solberg set a string of three fastest stage times this afternoon and has climbed into ninth position ahead of Armindo Araújo. Nasser Al-Attiyah was the only leading casualty of the day, the Qatari retiring after hitting a rock and breaking the suspension.

Philips Rally Argentina – Results after Day 2