XION Rally Argentina, the fourth round of the FIA World Rally Championship, got underway last night when the crews headed south-west to Merlo in San Luis for a short super special stage. Ogier - who was bidding for his sixth consecutive WRC victory - claimed the stage victory and was poised for a great battle on the South American roads until he was forced into retirement in the opening stage today with a fuel flow problem. Parked up, and incurring seven-minute penalties for each of the six stages not completed today, the Frenchman is way down the leaderboard and almost certainly not in a position to win the only round on the calendar he has yet to conquer.

Meeke was however fastest out of the blocks this morning, winning the opening stage - despite a handbrake problem - to take the lead ahead of Dani Sordo and Latvala. The following stage (SS3) was the only mountain stage he didn’t win today, a puncture allowing Latvala to set the fastest time and tee up a great battle between the rivals as Sordo slipped to sixth with on-going power steering issues. However, in the final long stage Latvala lost a chunk of time with a gearbox problem which carried through to the final super special stage, dropping him to third and handing a one minute 8.4 second advantage to Meeke at the end of the longest day of the event. Østberg has had a largely trouble-free day, the Norwegian suffering an engine problem in SS2 but recovering well to overnight in a last minute second position, 15.1 seconds ahead of Latvala.

Sordo is one of the drivers with the greatest amount of experience in Argentina but the Spaniard lost the power steering this morning and was forced to drive two stages before repairs during the mid-day service. He is fourth and has fared the best of the Hyundai i20 WRC drivers after team-mate Thierry Neuville lost over four minutes with a puncture in SS2 and Hayden Paddon was forced to retire in the mid-day service as a consequence of a string of problems in the opening stage of the day. Elfyn Evans is fifth, in the thick of an intense battle with Sordo. The Welshman lost a bit of time in dust behind Neuville in SS2 and wasn’t entirely comfortable with the handing of the car this afternoon, but is a mere 5.5 seconds further adrift after 149.44 competitive kilometres. Martin Prokop, in sixth, had a spin this morning but then broke the anti-roll bar this afternoon and the Czech driver is now nearly three and a half minutes off the lead. Behind Neuville in seventh, Khalid Al Qassimi is eighth ahead of WRC 2 drivers Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari and Yurii Protasov.

The list of retirements on one of the roughest Rally Argentina’s in years grew throughout the day. Andreas Mikkelsen joined team-mate Ogier on the side-lines; the Norwegian has endured a difficult day with a puncture and the damper popping through the bonnet in the extraordinarily difficult conditions. Despite effecting repairs in service, Mikkelsen didn’t make it to the fourth stage and retired on the road section with a technical problem. Ott Tanak was running well until hitting a rock in a water splash that took the wheel off his Fiesta, and Lorenzo Bertelli also lost a wheel this morning.

XION Rally Argentina – Unofficial Results after Section 5