Hanninen wins as Meeke retires
Juho Hanninen has extended his Intercontinental Rally Challenge points lead by clinching a dominant Rally Argentina victory - while reigning champion Kris Meeke was forced to retire at the end of the penultimate stage
Skoda driver Hanninen dominated from the outset, winning 11 of the event's 13 full-length stages and gradually striding away from nearest rivals Meeke and Guy Wilks. The Finn's final winning margin was 51 seconds.
Meeke had led for Peugeot UK initially after winning Friday's superspecial, but could not keep pace with Hanninen over the weekend and had a variety of issues, starting with intermittent engine cut-outs that hampered him in his battle for second with Wilks (Skoda UK) on Saturday.
That was followed by a throttle sensor problem that saw him fall a minute adrift of Wilks this morning. Worse was to follow when Meeke suffered a broken steering joint and suspension on the penultimate stage, costing him four minutes and dropping him to sixth place. Meeke and co-driver Paul Nagle did their utmost to try and fix the problem so they could get to the final superspecial, but eventually had to concede defeat and retire on the road section.
Hanninen's team-mate Jan Kopecky therefore moved up to third to complete an all-Skoda podium after a quietly consistent rally.
Gabriel Pozzo was the top Group N runner and best of the Argentineans in fourth place, winning a long battle with World Rally Championship regular and local hero Federico Villagra, who was unhappy with a lack of power from his M-Sport Ford for most of the weekend.
Bruno Magalhaes took sixth for Peugeot Portugal. He had been second on the opening superspecial, but illness, his lack of experience on the Argentinean stages and discomfort with some of his pace notes saw him drop back when the rally got properly underway.
Nasser Al-Attiyah had an unhappy IRC debut in the Rene Georges Skoda. He was unable to match the series regulars, then tumbled down the order with a double puncture, before eventually retiring when his engine cut at a watersplash this morning.
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Juho Hanninen Skoda 2h30m38.1s 2. Guy Wilks Skoda + 51.0s 3. Jan Kopecky Skoda + 2m20.1s 4. Gabriel Pozzo Subaru + 5m03.9s 5. Federico Villagra Ford + 5m14.2s 6. Bruno Magalhaes Peugeot + 6m11.0s 7. Nicolas Madero Mitsubishi + 6m47.5s 8. Diego Dominguez Mitsubishi + 7m39.3s 9. Alejandro Cancio Mitsubishi + 8m38.3s 10. Juan Manuel Marchetto Mitsubishi + 9m17.6s
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