WRC – Loeb gets closer to the feat in Argentina

Sébastien Loeb did not go into detail in the two afternoon stages. The leader of Rally from Argentina took both scratches to increase his lead to 40 seconds over his rival Sébastien Ogier who does not seem to want to take any risks to seek out the Alsatian, the Volkswagen driver preferring to secure the points for second place. The Championship leader had already taken the lead over Mikko Hirvonen in Santa Rosa? Villa del Dique (SS8) when the latter suffered a puncture. The Frenchman at the top of the Drivers' standings will have no reason to exceed his limits since he now has a two-minute lead over Evgeny Novikov who climbed onto the provisional podium after taking advantage of the twists and turns that occurred in Amboy-Yacanto.

Mikko Hirvonen's misfortunes continued with untimely engine shutdowns occurring throughout the special. The Finn lost almost six minutes in the adventure and fell to sixth place. His compatriot Jari-Matti Latvala was also in difficulty suffering a puncture. The Volkswagen driver is now in fourth position, 13” behind Evgeny Novikov and will have hopes of returning to the top three during the final stage. “I knew Mikko had a puncture and I wanted to get back on him. I drove into a hole and we got a puncture. We had the fastest wheel change of my career. » As for Andreas Mikkelsen, the Norwegian from the German team was unable to start the last special after breaking the suspension of his Polo R WRC while he was in sixth place.

Thierry Neuville opted for the right strategy. Adopting a cautious approach, the Belgian finds himself fifth, 38 seconds behind Jari-Matti Latvala and with a comfortable lead over Mikko Hirvonen. Andreas Mikkelsen, credited with a fixed time, remains seventh with almost three minutes ahead of Mads Ostberg. Martin Prokop follows in eighth place ahead of Dani Sordo and Gabriel Pozzo. Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari is still comfortably in the lead of WRC2 with his Ford Fiesta RRC. The super special stage closing stage won by Jari-Matti Latvala did not greatly change the ranking. Sébastien Loeb has a 39”8 lead over Sébastien Ogier before entering the final stage of the Argentinian event. Evgeny Novikov remains on the provisional podium with 8”2 ahead of Jari-Matti Latvala. Thierry Neuville remains 5th ahead of Mikko Hirvonen. Mads Ostberg moved up to 7th place ahead of Martin Prokop, the retirement of Andreas Mikkelsen causing him to fall to 9th place ahead of Dani Sordo.

The video summary of the second pass of the special stages of the third day can be found on this link.