Loeb snatches victory in Argentina

It's no longer a surprise when tarmac specialist Sébastien Loeb wins on gravel, but this weekend's Rally Argentina was an event like no other. Organizers had to cancel 122km worth of special stages (one third of the rally), while drivers and team personnel spent a night sleeping on the airport, due to faulty planning.

In oder to attract other spectators than usual rallying fans, the 27th running of Rally Argentina kicked off on an unusual location: the River Plate football stadium in Buenos Aires, the place where the mighty Argentinian team won its first World Cup trophy in 1978. A superpecial stage was run on Thursday night, with drivers starting the 8-shaped gravel course in opposite direction.

It was BP Ford's Mikko Hirvonen who won the short sprint on the "El Monumental" in little over two minutes, ahead of team-mate Marcus Grönholm, but top contenders like Loeb, P.Solberg or Sordo were all within 1.5 seconds off the winning time. The WRC caravan was heading to the headquarter of the rally, near the city of Córdoba, which was over 700km away.

Organizers gambled a lot with the logistics of this air trip and their plans were reduced to nothing by heavy rains and strong winds that prevented the planes from taking off on time. Due to the late arrival of the drivers from the Argentinian capital to Córdoba, all special stages scheduled for Friday, except for the night superspecial stage on a smaller football stadium in Córdoba.

Hirvonen won again in front of another fellow Finn in a Ford Focus RS WRC 06, Jari-Matti Lavala (Stobart M-Sport). After only 4.8km of timed stages, Hirvonen had a fragile 2.4 seconds lead over Spaniard Dani Sordo, with Loeb, Grönholm and P.Solberg tightly packed behind him.

With the real rally action reduced to just two days, of which the last one is always a short one, Rally Argentina was going to be run flat-out, with no room for errors. Citroën's Sébastien Loeb, who usually takes it easy on the early moments of a gravel rally, charged hard clocking the best time in all five stages run on Saturday afternoon. But the Frenchman couldn't build up a healthy advantage over Grönholm, who trailed him by 15.4 seconds ahead of the service park.

Grönholm would eventually launch an attack himself, winning two of the four stages in the afternoon loop, with Loeb grabbing the other two stage wins. South-American spectators already nicknamed Loeb's Citroën C4 WRC as "flecha roja" (red arrow). The car that made his debut in Monte Carlo this year proves to be as reliable as the Xsara WRC, but considerably faster.

At the end of leg 2, Loeb had 19.2 seconds ahead of Grönholm, with two other Finns, Hirvonen and Latvala, trailing at 1'25" and 2'32" respectively. The contribution of Citroën's new partner, Meteo France, proved decisive once again in the tire choice, due to the changing weather condition on the stages. On course for a podium finish, Subaru's Petter Solberg retired with a damaged radiator. However, the fight at the top was overshadowed by a an accident of a local Group N driver, which resulted in the death of a woman and the wounding of two other spectators on SS14.

With 82.4km of timed stages divided into five stages on Sunday, Grönholm had no other choice but to push. But the double world champion dropped eight seconds after hitting some rocks on the opening stage of the day and then decided to adopt a more conservative driving style in order to preserve Ford's double podium finish.

The day belonged to Citroën, whose drivers shared all five stage wins. Daniel Sordo recovered from hydraulic problems on the previous day to clock best times on both runs over the famous high-altitude El Condor stages, while team-mate Loeb pocketed the two runs over the long Mina Clavero stage and the final superspecial stage on the Córdoba football stadium.

"I am obviously delighted to have notched up another win with the Citroën C4 on what was yet another very different type of event", said Loeb. "With the exception of the organisational fiasco on Leg 1, it's always a pleasure to compete here in front of such enthusiastic crowds. The C4 ran like clockwork on all the different types of road and we now have a lead of three points over Marcus in the drivers' standings."

Despite being outpaced in Argentina, Ford extended their lead in the manufacturers' points table, thanks to a consistent finish from Grönholm and Hirvonen. "It was a shame that the first leg was canceled and that made it a strange rally. I'm disappointed that the fight with Seb wasn't closer but second and third means that Ford has increased its lead," said Grönholm, one of the very few drivers to express harsh critics on the organizing efforts.

The Stobart M-Sport duo of Jari-Mati Latvala and Henning Solberg took fourth and fifth respectively, ahead of Daniel Sordo, Chris Atkinson and Manfred Stohl. P-WRC winner Federico Villagra finished just outside the points in ninth.

Teams already packed their bags as the WRC returns to Europe for two more tough gravel rallies ahead of the two-month summer break. Rally d'Italia Sardegna will be the first of the two, on May 18-20.