2009 WRC : Loeb in control of Rally Argentina at the end of day two

Sebastien Loeb - Citroen C4 WRC - Citroen Total World Rally Team

ESTADIO CORDOBA, Argentina : April 25, 2009 - Citroen C4 WRC driver Sebastien Loeb rounded off Saturday’s second day of Rally Argentina with a comfortable overall lead of 58.6 seconds.


The Frenchman began the day in third, 16.3sec behind his rally leading team-mate Dani Sordo and 11.2sec behind Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen in second.

Capitalising on his ideal start position of third on the road, Loeb attacked hard from the off, going fastest through each of the morning’s stages and returning to the midday service in first place, 7.3sec ahead of Hirvonen.

Mikko Hirvonen - Ford Focus WRC - BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team

The Finn responded with a stage win on the afternoon’s first stage, but the prospect of an epic fight with his title rival disappeared on the next, when Hirvonen’s overheating engine brought about his retirement.

From that point on, Loeb and Sordo held their positions, on course for a one two finish on tomorrow’s short final day. Returning to the Service Park after the day closing Super Special, Loeb said he couldn’t fault his day, but was sorry the fight with Mikko was over.

“I pushed hard from the start to the end today, I was on the limit everywhere, and now we have lead of almost a minute, so it’s been a great day,” he said. “It was really a good fight with Mikko, so I was disappointed when he went out because now the race is not the same. Also, when it comes to the championship, if we can finish like this then there will be a big gap - so that’s not so nice. Tomorrow the most important thing for me is to keep the car on the road. We have a big lead over Dani so we don’t have to take big risks.”

Sordo said his starting position of first on the road had been partly to blame for his drop down the order. “I lost time with the road position on a couple of stages where I needed more traction, but it’s hard not to be happy with second place,” he said. “Of course I’d be even happier with first but Seb is a long way ahead and it’s too much to make up. We have to see what happens tomorrow though - Jari-Matti is coming very fast.”

Jari-Matti Latvala of the BP Ford Abu Dhabi team holds third place, 41.5sec behind Sordo, and has his sights set on a steady, drama-free drive on Sunday to collect six championship points.

“Sordo is too far ahead for us to catch tomorrow - even if we took one second per kilometre out of him that still wouldn’t be enough,” he said. “So the plan is to try and carry on like this until the end. The afternoon has been very good, and good for my confidence too. We were able to catch Henning and Petter and then of course Mikko went out - which is a big shame for him - but I’m happy with my position.”

Citroen Xsara driver Petter Solberg completed the day fourth, one minute behind Latvala, but pleased to have got through an awkward day. “It’s okay but we certainly had few problems today,” he said. “The turbo boost system wasn’t working properly on the stages this morning, then after service we got a soft tyre when we knocked it off the wheel and then the engine overheated on two stages. This morning I thought I could try for third place tomorrow but now we’re just hoping to keep hold of fourth.”

Henning Solberg rounds off the top five positions, 43.7sec behind his brother, in his Stobart VK M-Sport team Ford Focus. “It’s been quite a good day,” he said. “I’ve been working hard with the car to get it as good as I can, but the problem comes in the twisty sections because my proper gearbox broke on Thursday. This one is a winter specification replacement - it’s just not the same.”

Day 2 : Top 20 - Race Result

Pos	No	Driver	Time	Diff. next	Diff. 1st
1.	1	Sebastien LOEB	3:26:03.7	0.0	0.0
2.	2	Dani SORDO	3:27:02.3	+58.6	+58.6
3.	4	Jari-Matti LATVALA	3:27:43.8	+41.5	+1:40.1
4.	11	Petter SOLBERG	3:28:44.0	+1:00.2	+2:40.3
5.	6	Henning SOLBERG	3:29:27.7	+43.7	+3:24.0
6.	9	Federico VILLAGRA	3:31:12.7	+1:45.0	+5:09.0
7.	5	Matthew WILSON	3:31:30.7	+18.0	+5:27.0
8.	150	Nasser AL-ATTIYAH	3:45:48.7	+14:18.0	+19:45.0
9.	12	Sebastien OGIER	3:46:23.0	+34.3	+20:19.3
10.	155	Juan MARCHETTO	3:46:40.9	+17.9	+20:37.2
11.	160	Marcos LIGATO	3:48:15.6	+1:34.7	+22:11.9
12.	65	Nicolás FUCHS	3:51:40.4	+3:24.8	+25:36.7
13.	133	Toshi ARAI	3:52:40.0	+59.6	+26:36.3
14.	66	Raúl MARTÍNEZ	4:02:59.7	+10:19.7	+36:56.0
15.	32	Michal KOSCIUSZKO	4:05:29.6	+2:29.9	+39:25.9
16.	31	Aaron Nicolai BURKART	4:07:10.3	+1:40.7	+41:06.6
17.	144	Spyros PAVLIDES	4:07:41.8	+31.5	+41:38.1
18.	70	Agustín ELVIRA	4:09:13.2	+1:31.4	+43:09.5
19.	39	Alessandro BETTEGA	4:13:20.3	+4:07.1	+47:16.6
20.	75	Daniel SACUR	4:15:08.5	+1:48.2	+49:04.8

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