SS12: Hat trick for Solberg

Petter Solberg has made it a hat trick of stage wins on day two of Philips Rally Argentina by completing Saturday’s penultimate run 11.3s faster than his closest rival Thierry Neuville.

Solberg is on a charge in his Ford Fiesta RS WRC after dropping out of the lead on Friday afternoon with damaged steering.

He said: “I think I’ve done a good job today. I could do a better job than this but I am not in a position to go absolutely crazy. I just need to get as many points as possible to keep in touch with the championship.”

Second-placed Neuville was also pleased with his performance. The Citroen Junior driver said: “Honestly on this stage we got back a bit of the rhythm from yesterday although in the dangerous corners I slowed down a bit.”

Sebastien Loeb, whose overall lead to Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen is 7.8s, was 0.1s faster than the Finn. He said: “I was faster at the start, he was quicker in the middle then I come back at the end. This was perfection.”

Ott Tanak, who is running first on the road, recorded the sixth quickest time in his M-Sport Fiesta. He said: “It was a bit slippery in the forest with damp and mud.”

Fellow M-Sport Fiesta driver Evgeny Novikov was eighth fastest. He said: “I was just driving and improving my pace notes for the future. There was nothing crazy.”

Sebastien Ogier took advantage of a small mistake by Volkswagen Motorsport team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen to move into sixth overall. “It was in a fast corner where I had a spin and lost a lot of speed on the straight,” said Mikkelsen.

Daniel Oliveira struggled to make it through the stage due to a suspected broken driveshaft on his Brazil World Rally Team Fiesta, which left him stranded shortly after the stage finish.

Armindo Araujo had to overtake Oliveira during the stage but said he didn’t experience any significant delay in his MINI John Cooper Works WRC.

Crews are now heading back to Villa Carlos Paz for a 30-minute service halt. The final stage of the day, Super Especial Amarok, goes live at 19:50hrs local time.