Rally Argentina keen to pair with potential Brazilian round in 2013 World Rally Championship

Brazil is one of two candidate events which will be considered by the FIA this year for possible inclusion on the 2013 calendar, with South Africa its main rival. AUTOSPORT understands that South Africa is currently favourite for the slot.

Eli believes linking the Argentina and Brazil rounds would be the best solution for the WRC.

"A cargo ship between Europe and Brazil is taking 10 days, but between Europe and Argentina it is a minimum of 16 days - so it makes sense for the cars to go to Brazil first," he said. "Normally, after this event, the cargo goes from here to New Zealand. The logical way around this is for the WRC to go from Europe to Brazil; Brazil to Argentina and Argentina to Chile and then on and down to New Zealand [via the Pacific]. From Brazil to Chile, the WRC would travel all the way by truck."

One option would be to run the two South American events a week apart, but Citroen team boss Yves Matton is not in favour of this.

"I agree we can save money with the logistics [by running the two events one after the other]," said Matton. "The containers are in the same part of the world, but for me not with the gap of one weekend between the rallies.

"What do I do with the team? I cannot ask my guys to stay here for this length of time. I need to send them back to Europe and we have the gap of three or four weeks.

"Another problem could be for the promotion and communication - staying in the same area in the world for two rallies like that is maybe not the best solution."

The WRC Commission will discuss options for the 2013 schedule next week.