Loeb takes his South American 70th

Everyone knows Citroen are strong in Argentina, indeed that have won every Rally Argentina since 2004 thanks to Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Loeb.

However, for the first time in many years, Ford ruffled Citroen's feathers, with new team leader Petter Solberg leading up to SS4. That was as far as he got in the lead, a stone on the racing line sent Solberg into the bushes and resulted in a broke steering arm.

Team Director Malcolm Wilson said: “It’s a great opportunity lost again to be honest so we’re disappointed. But we’re confident we can get the car fixed for tomorrow [Leg 2] and we’ll continue and put up a good fight again like in Portugal and get back into the points with Petter.”

This let Mikko Hirvonen into the lead, and his team-mate up into second. This was the start of a close fight between the red and white rockets. Loeb pushed hard through the rutted SS5, overhauling Hirvonen by just a tenth of a second.

“We changed a bit the set-up and I was much more confident in the afternoon,” said Loeb. “I pushed really hard and there were no mistakes. It is very close with Mikko and there is a long way to go.” Loeb said.

It was only a matter of time until Hirvonen would be told to give way to Loeb, and that order came on Leg 2. The Finn won the opening two stages, putting Loeb under pressure and causing the Frenchman to have a big moment. However, team boss Yves Matton called time on the scrap, allowing Loeb his 70^th WRC win.

The final day was relatively relaxed for the Citroen pairing. Loeb carried on to his amazing 70^th win, whilst Hirvonen took second, just 15.2 secs behind. It proved that the super-consistant Hirvonen would have been fast enough to win the rally off of his own speed, but undoubtedly, Loeb would have fought back and Matton may have been faced with having one (or both) of his €400,000 cars converted into pointy balls of metal or wrapped around a pretty solid object, instead of a comfortable 1-2 finish.

Another incredibly consistent run off the back of his breakthrough Portuguese win, Mads Ostberg snatched the final podium place in his highest of the Fiesta's. Only handling issues slowed the Norwegian, but his solid result lifted him up to fourth in the Driver's table.

Both Martin Prokop and Theirry Neuville took their career-best finishes in Argentina, with Prokop fourth and Neuville fifth. What a rally to achieve your best finish on!

Sixth is not what could be considered a fair result for the ever-hard-charging Petter Solberg. After that unforgiving Argentinian rock ruined what seemed to be leading up to his first win in nearly 7 years, Solberg returned under Rally 2 rules. And what a comeback he made.

Beginning Day 2 down in 11^th place, over 14 mins off the lead, owing to his Rally 2 penalties, Solberg began a do-or-die push back up into the points. He began his charge on SS10, winning every stage, bar SS13, from there home. Overall, he won over half of the stages in the rally, getting back to sixth after team-mate Dani Sordo's woes. And, to boot, Solberg won the event-closing Power Stage as well.

Sebastian Ogier impressively took his Skoda Fabia S2000 up to seventh, after team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen retired with suspension failure on SS15. Mikkselsen had the beating of Ogier throughout the rally, only losing out when the right-front wheel decided to do it's own thing.

Evgney Novikov took eighth with Nasser Al-Attiyah ninth, having run higher only to slip into the retirement ranks. Tenth went to Ott Tanak, another driver rescued by Rally 2.

Dani Sordo's one-off drive for Ford was going according to plan, up until the last stage when the alternator belt snapped and put him out whilst running third. Ford hope that Jari-Matti Latvala will be fit for Greece this month, but they now know who to call if he isn't fully fit.

Benito Guerra took an outstanding 4 minute victory margin in the P-WRC section of the rally. Piloting his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, he survived the 500 gruelling kilometres to finish ahead of Nicholas Fuchs. A dodgy gearbox couldn't deny Valeriy Gorban a third placed finish in the colourful Mentos-sponsored Lancer.

“I’m really, really happy with my second win and my first victory outside of Mexico. There were several times when I felt I needed to race to be faster but not in Argentina. I had to be very calm to keep the car in one piece for the long, long days. I did this and now with two wins I am the leader of the championship and can dream of being world champion.” said Guerra.