WRC Round 6: Rally ACA Argentina Day 2
At the end of the first day of competition Sebastian Loeb had taken the lead from both Marcus Gronholm and Petter Solberg, leaving Petter in second, behind Loeb by 40 seconds. Gigi Galli had managed to hold onto third from the advances of his Peugot teammate Manfred Stohl. Day two included no super special circuit stages, but instead went right to the action in the mountains surrounding Cordoba.
The morning stages were damp from rainfall and due to the climbing altitudes fog was pervasive over much of the road. In the morning half, Gigi Galli managed to pull away from Manfred Stohl due to a few mistakes and spins by Stohl. Loeb continued to extend his lead over Petter Solberg, while his brother Henning had better luck as he overhauled Manfred Stohl to move into the fourth position. A battle lower down the points between Daniel Sordo and Chris Atkinson developed as Atkinson spent the morning closing the gap between the two of them. Marcus Gronholm restarted, but was well out of range of any points scoring positions and too far off the pace to have any hope of challenging for the top spots, he still set some of the fastest times on the morning stages. Petter Solberg complained of a poor tire choice and broken gear paddle from letting him close the gap to Loeb.
The afternoon stages proved more of the same, as Loeb stayed at the top with Petter Solberg right behind him. Chris Atkinson was able to overtake Sordo on the last three stages of the day giving himself a solid 1 minute lead. Sordo never seemed to find his pace on the rough and rutted roads of Argentina on day two. Galli had a close call over a jump, but managed to recover and was able to hold onto third for the rest of day two. Unfortunately for Chris Atkinson a time penalty for speeding in the service park cost him his lead over Sordo and bumped him back down into seventh position after he had fought all day to take sixth. Matthew Wilson, who had held the final points position, lost it to his team mate Perez Companc, but only by a slim margin.