2009 WRC : Dani Sordo leads Rally Argentina at the end of day one

Dani Sordo - Citroen C4 WRC - Citroen Total World Rally Team

AGUA DE ORO, Argentina : April 24, 2009 - Spaniard Dani Sordo leads Rally Argentina at the end of an extremely close opening day during which the lead changed hands eight times in nine stages.


After the longest day of the rally, which comprised 142.16 stage kilometres, the Citroen C4 driver heads a group of four drivers, each in leading contention, who are separated by less than 19 seconds.

Sordo will take a lead of 5.1sec over Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen into Saturday’s second day, but will have to contend with a start position of first on the road, which might prove a handicap if conditions are dry. This evening, however, Sordo wasn’t worried about the road cleaning effect.

“I don’t know about how the position will affect me tomorrow, but at the moment I’m first, and this is good,” he said. “I have a lot of confidence with the car, it’s easy to drive, and I’ll just try my best. Today Sebastien was first on the road and now he’s third - so of course I will try to lose as little time as possible - but it’s also very important to learn how to drive first on the road. Maybe one day I’ll be there more often.”

Hirvonen ended the day 11.2sec ahead of his championship rival Sebastien Loeb. The Finn had planned to surrender a place on the final stage to secure what he believed would be a more advantageous road position on Saturday. In the end, however, he was forced to play a straight hand when the WRC split time system stopped working.

“Ideally I would have been behind Sebastien tomorrow, but with no splits on the final stage I just tried to do a steady drive and avoid punctures,” Hirvonen explained. “I think tomorrow’s stages are quite soft, so hopefully they won’t clean too much and that won’t give Sebastien much of an advantage. For sure tomorrow it’s going to be a very difficult day though. Sebastien has been very fast on those stages and Dani has been driving very well too. It’s going to be a really big fight.”

Day 1 : Top 20 - Race Result

Pos	No	Driver	Time	Diff. next	Diff. 1st
1.	2	Dani SORDO	1:45:11.3	0.0	0.0
2.	3	Mikko HIRVONEN	1:45:16.4	+5.1	+5.1
3.	1	Sebastien LOEB	1:45:27.6	+11.2	+16.3
4.	11	Petter SOLBERG	1:45:30.2	+2.6	+18.9
5.	6	Henning SOLBERG	1:45:59.2	+29.0	+47.9
6.	4	Jari-Matti LATVALA	1:46:17.7	+18.5	+1:06.4
7.	5	Matthew WILSON	1:47:34.3	+1:16.6	+2:23.0
8.	9	Federico VILLAGRA	1:47:50.2	+15.9	+2:38.9
9.	12	Sebastien OGIER	1:48:25.7	+35.5	+3:14.4
10.	8	Conrad RAUTENBACH	1:48:59.5	+33.8	+3:48.2
11.	154	Nicolás MADERO	1:54:27.2	+5:27.7	+9:15.9
12.	159	Gabriel POZZO	1:54:39.5	+12.3	+9:28.2
13.	150	Nasser AL-ATTIYAH	1:54:46.9	+7.4	+9:35.6
14.	160	Marcos LIGATO	1:55:00.9	+14.0	+9:49.6
15.	155	Juan MARCHETTO	1:55:18.7	+17.8	+10:07.4
16.	133	Toshi ARAI	1:55:52.7	+34.0	+10:41.4
17.	131	Martin PROKOP	1:55:53.9	+1.2	+10:42.6
18.	65	Nicolás FUCHS	1:57:46.7	+1:52.8	+12:35.4
19.	153	Claudio MENZI	1:58:57.9	+1:11.2	+13:46.6
20.	67	Ezequiel CAMPOS	1:59:51.1	+53.2	+14:39.8

[Source : WRC, 2009 Argentina Rally, CITROEN, FORD]