Thierry Neuville is one stage away from a second successive World Rally Championship victory this year on Rally Argentina, 40.2s ahead of Hyundai team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen.
Kris Meeke was demoted to fifth overnight after a penalty, giving Ogier way to third place, but the Toyota driver regained the podium spot after two stages this morning.
Two of the FIA WRC’s most legendary stages make up Sunday morning’s itinerary on Rally Argentina: El Cóndor and Mina Clavero. Crews faced 36.73 kilometres of tough mountain roads, supported by hundreds of thousands of spectators who have camped out for days to get a glimpse of the action.
Neuville holds a confortable lead in the front after Ott Tanak’s retirement from second place in Saturday’s final stage. He took a cautious approach through El Cóndor to finish only seventh quickest but scored a stage win on Mina Clavero. Mikkelsen ensured Hyundai’s 1-2 would remain safe and will enter the Power Stage with a 24.1s advantage over Meeke behind.
Meeke finished SS15, the final stage on Saturday, in the final podium position. However a 10 second penalty for not following the itinerary on the roadbook demoted him to fifth place behind Dani Sordo overnight. But Toyota’s best placed driver did not admit defeat, taking fourth from Sordo on El Cóndor and moving into third on Mina Clavero. There’s now a 5.2s gap between Meeke and Ogier heading to the Power Stage, a re-run of El Cóndor.
Sordo was passed by Meeke in El Condor and fell behind Jari-Mati Latvala on Mina Clavero. But the Spaniard still has all his chances to recover fifth place from the Finn on the Power Stage, as only 0.7s separate the rivals with one stage left.
Behind M-Sport’s Teemu Suninen, who continues to hold a safe seventh place, Tänak is on a mission. Restarting in ninth place after his retirement on Saturday, he has three stages to make up two minutes on FIA WRC 2 Pro leader Mads Østberg. After two stages, the gap had fallen to 35.8s. Østberg wasn’t helped by a recurring intercom issue which arose on SS15 the day before, affecting his ability to hear the pace-note delivered by his co-driver.
Pedro Heller has a comfortable lead in FIA WRC 2 and is 10th overall.
