WRC Round 6: Rally ACA Argentina
Rally Argentina kicked off this past Friday with the expectations of water splashes, rough terrain, and lots of chances for competition at the top of the leader board. Sebastian Loeb currently leads the driver’s championship with Marcus Gronholm hoping to use this rally as a strike back in the fight for the championship. Similarly Petter Solberg will be looking for a win in his hopes to kick start his bid for the title. For the other drivers, they will be looking to secure points for the manufacturer, and for some, hopefully challenging their own personal goals.
The first two stages of the rally were super special stages that took place in the football stadium in the town of Cordoba, the home of the service park for the rally teams as well as the operational base for the rally. More than 40,000 fans packed into the stadium to watch their favorite drivers show off their talent in the 2.2km circuit which they completed twice, once in each section. Petter Solberg and Marcus Gronholm took the early iniative by setting the fastest times. These first stages took place the night before the start of the stages out in the countryside.
Loeb and his Citroen were the first out on the stage in the morning and were severely hampered by a spin during the stage as well as road clearing duties due to the high amounts of loose gravel and dust on the road surface. Petter Solberg charged to the lead with Gronholm right behind him, while many of the younger drivers filled in the other top spots after this first stage. However, it didn’t take long for Loeb to get back into his usual pace when he charged up the leaderboard to get back into the top five by the midday service. Petter slipped from first after one of his rear tires exploded on the fifth stage. Gronholm capitalized and moved into first despite Loeb setting the fastest stage time before the midday service.
The stages after the midday service proved no less exciting. Loeb’s teammate Xavier Pons hit a rock in the sixth stage, which later caused a fuel system leak resulting in his car coming to rest and catching on fire in the middle of the racing line, he was forced to retire as a result. The afternoon was a bad day for the BP Ford team as they saw both their top drivers retire due to mechanical problems; Gronholm’s differentials locked and his engine would not restart upon a stop, and Hirvonen saw his cylinder’s die out one by one until after stage nine he was forced to retire, as the car was running on only two cylinders. Petter continued to put in solid times, but another tire puncture and a 10 second time penalty on the second to last stage kept him from taking the lead away from the now rally leader Sebastian Loeb.
Loeb drove with his usual confidence and gusto to charge up the leader board in the afternoon to end the day 20 seconds ahead of Petter. Gigi Galli, the former Mitsubishi driver now piloting a Pirelli backed Peugot, showed a solid performance to end the day in third. Manfred Stohl, competing in his 100th WRC event, was in fourth place with Petter’s older brother Henning Solberg in the fifth position. The young Daniel Sordo and Chris Atkinson showed that they could compete with the best and ended day one in sixth and seventh respectively. BP Ford program director Malcolm Wilson’s son Matthew Wilson rounds out the points postions at the end of day one in eight.
