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Rally Mexico, WTCC opener

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WTCC - Argentina: The formation lap is go! Jose Maria Lopez leads the field away from pole position.
WRC - Mexico: Tanak completes Rally Mexico. OK, he missed a pretty big chunk, but his car also spent Saturday under water. So thumbs up all round.

His time is 7m15.1s.
WTCC - Argentina: Go!!! Yvan Muller passes Lopez into Turn 1 but then runs wide and Lopez regains the lead. Looks like Ma Qing Hua stalled at the start.
WRC - Mexico: A few times have come in. Kubica's 0.5s slower than Tanak, Paddon's 3.5s quicker.
WTCC - Argentina: Biff! John Filippi and James Thompson come together and they head to the pits.
WRC - Mexico: Meeke is much quicker than Paddon, nine seconds in fact. Latvala's going even quicker.
WTCC - Argentina: Rob Huff passes Mehdi Bennani for seventh spot. Ma Qing Hua is slicing through the field after stuttering away from the grid and is now 11th.
WTCC - Argentina: Bennani tries to repass Huff at the end of the main straight and biffs the Lada on the right-rear. Huff makes it back to the garage but the car is damaged.
WRC - Mexico: Boom, Latvala goes quickest - 4.7s quicker than Meeke.
WTCC - Argentina: More shuntation: Hugo Valente isn't going to be popular with the Campos mechanics who rebuilt his car overnight. He's just gone front-first into the barriers at Turn 2.
WTCC - Argentina: Bennani is trying to pass Tom Chilton for sixth but Chilton is having none of it. Still Lopez-Muller-Loeb-Monteiro-Tarquini up front
WTCC - Argentina: Shouldn't have looked away; Chilton has been deposed by Bennani, and Norbert Michelisz and Ma have come through too.
WRC - Mexico: Neuville nicks P1 from Latvala, by 1.6s. The Hyundai could have won this event.
WTCC - Argentina: The race is settling down now after that initial scramble for position. Lopez leads Muller by 1.898s, with Loeb slipping back a little. He's another 2.4s down the road. The gap stretches further to the chasing Hondas; Monteiro is 5s off Loeb but Tarquini is just behind his team-mate.
WRC - Mexico: Prokop's 17s slower than Neuville. Sordo and Evans next up.
WTCC - Argentina: Drive-through penalty for Bennani because of that contact with Huff. A very optimistic move for a 'door' that was already closing. Bennani emerges 13th behind Gregoire Demoustier.
WTCC - Argentina: Muller pumps in his fastest lap of the race on Lap 9 but he's already 2.5s off the back of Lopez.
WTCC - Argentina: We type too soon. The gap is now 2.2s; Lopez lost a little time but now both he and Muller are lapping in the low 1m48s bracket.
WRC - Mexico: Evans is 11s slower than Neuville, but that confirms fourth place for the young Welshman (well, providing he reaches the official end of the rally).

Good work by the M-Sport youngster.
WTCC - Argentina: Lopez has got it! Followed by Muller (+3.17s), Loeb (+7.5s), Monteiro (+14.16s), Tarquini (+16.322s), Michelisz (+18.470s), Ma (+20.164s), Chilton (+23.499s), D'Aste (+27306s) and Rydell (+30.266s). That's your top 10.
WRC - Mexico: Mikkelsen nails his run, and beats Neuville by 0.2s.
WRC - Mexico: Ostberg is 2.3s slower than Mikkelsen. So that's second place to the Citroen man, but Mikkelsen's set to bank more powerstage points.

Ogier is about to absolutely blow him away though.
WRC - Mexico: There you have it, 5.6s quicker than Mikkelsen. So...

SEBASTIEN OGIER WINS THE POWERSTAGE AND RALLY MEXICO!
WRC - Mexico - result:

1 Ogier 4h19m13.4s
2 Ostberg +1m18.8s
3 Mikkelsen +1m25.1s
4 Evans +3m40.2s
5 Sordo +5m01.8s
6 Prokop +6m36.1s

Leading powerstage times:

1 Ogier 6m50.5s
2 Mikkelsen +5.6s
3 Neuville +5.8s
WTCC - Argentina: After what seems like the briefest of pauses, the cars are driving to the grid for Race 2. James Thompson's Lada Vesta has been repaired and has taken its place on P1, courtesy of his 10th place in yesterday's qualifying session.

But it's bad news for Rob Huff. The pitlane is closed and his car is still being worked on just outside the garage.
WTCC - Argentina: If you missed race one, it was all about Citroen. Here's the full report:

WTCC Argentina race one: Lopez leads Citroen sweep
WTCC - Argentina: Formation lap for race two is under way. Who'd have expected to see one of the brand new Ladas on pole position?
WTCC - Argentina: Extraordinary! Thompson pulls into the garage at the end of the first lap. Stefano D'Aste has been fired off during the first lap, too. Ma Qing Hua leads from Sebastien Loeb, having started seventh and eighth - no, Loeb has gone by and the Safety Car is about to come out. And our live timing and scoring system has died.
WTCC - Argentina: It looks like D'Aste and Thompson came together at the first corner and Gabriele Tarquini took to the grass to try to pass Tom Coronel. But D'Aste departed the track at Turn 2 in a separate contact. Tom Coronel has been sent off-track too, during a squabble with Tarquini. Order under the SC is Loeb-Ma-Tarquini-Lopez-Bennani-Monteiro-Muller-Michelisz.
WTCC - Argentina: Ma has had to call in to the pits to clear his radiators. He made an error and went off-track, which let Loeb into the lead.
WTCC - Argentina: "My mistake, that's all I can say" is Tom Coronel's verdict on his retirement from Race 2; he had a grassy moment while getting racy with Gabriele Tarquini, and as well as blocking his radiators he has broken his front splitter.
WTCC - Argentina: Loeb leads the restart. We're told the safety car was thrown for oil at Turn 2, which may account for Stefano D'Aste's departure from the fray there.
WTCC - Argentina: Lopez is by Tarquini just after the restart – Mehdi Bennani will be next on his rear bumper – while Yvan Muller has latched on to the tail of fifth-placed Monteiro.
WTCC - Argentina: Dusan Borkovic has gone off-track in his Civic while being passed by Tom Chilton for eighth.
WTCC - Argentina: We should acknowledge Norbert Michelisz's performance this weekend. He somehow managed to get up to fifth spot from the back row of the grid in the early running, and is now seventh. Muller has passed Monteiro for fifth.
WTCC - Argentina: Muller has just helped Bennani off the track. It appeared that Muller escaped unscathed but he has just briefly run off-track. Stewards are investigating.
WTCC - Argentina: That slip has left Muller in fifth, while Bennani has got back ahead of Michelisz to run sixth. Ma Qing Hua is in close attendance. The net beneficiary of this intra-Citroen tangle is Monteiro, up to fourth.

By: AUTOSPORT staff, David Evans, Stuart Codling, Scott Mitchell

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