WRC Argentina

WRC - Argentina: If you're wondering why our anonymous source said Ostberg's chasing his first "real" win, that's because the one WRC victory he has on his record is Portugal 2012, and that was inherited several hours after the finish when Mikko Hirvonen was disqualified.

WRC - Argentina: Ostberg's inherited Portugal win back in 2012 prompted us to run a feature on all of the WRC's one-time victors.

At the time, some of us thought this was a bit harsh on up-and-comer Ostberg as it kind of implied he'd never win another one.

Three years on, the chap who commissioned that feature has been proved right so far, but that might change in the next 24 hours.

In the meantime, while the stage is stopped and we're waiting for more news, here's the feature in question, a bit of a DAVID EVANS cracker:

The WRC's one-hit-wonders

If you're just joining us, a crash for Paddon has caused SS9 to be halted. He and co-driver Kennard are fine, so we're assuming their car is in an awkward position.

IndyCar - Barber: While we wait, time to catch up on some action from elsewhere in the racing world.

Just a two-day weekend for the IndyCar field at Barber Motorsports Park, with two practice sessions today before qualifying later on - though as this was the scene of the major pre-season test, Friday practice probably wasn't missed too much.

It was Ganassi to the fore in practice one with Scott Dixon fastest, but Will Power and Helio Castroneves put Penske up front in practice two.

Will Power, Penske, Barber IndyCar 2015

WRC - Argentina: We've mentioned that our second-place man Mads Ostberg isn't very well this weekend. DAVID EVANS has been hearing just how poorly the Norwegian is:

Ostberg was busy swallowing pills in service to try and improve his health through the afternoon. The Norwegian admitted he'd felt pretty rotten towards the end of the morning action.

"I never normally look at the trip meter to find out how far I have to go in a stage," said Ostberg. "But in that last one I started to feel a bit worse, so I had a look.

"Actually, I looked and it said 28km, then 33, then 35… But when I looked for the first time and saw I still had 20km to go, I thought: 'Oh, for f***'s sake!'"

He'll feel better if he wins, we reckon.

In 'excuse for a picture of a cool car on an evocative track' news, Audi's latest generation R8 LMS GT3 car took a one-two on the Nurburgring Nordschleife in the VLN race with Christopher Mies and Nico Muller leading home Pierre Kaffer and Laurens Vanthoor earlier today.

Audi, VLN 2015

That's a marker for next month's Nurburgring 24 Hours, which will also feature the World Touring Car Championship making its Nordschleife debut as a support event. The WTCC has a test on the epic track later this week, and our correspondent STUART CODLING will be heading there for some feature-preparing fever.

WRC - Argentina: More from DAVID EVANS:

Rally leader Meeke's start to the day hadn't been the best when he was awoken by a bunch of bikers heading through Villa Carlos Paz past his hotel window.

"The Cookstown 100 bike race is on at home this weekend and when I heard those bikes, I woke up thinking I was at home!" he joked.

The leader also admitted he'd had an ultra-conservative run through SS8, the one he’d labelled from the recce onwards as the toughest of the event. That's the stage that's repeated to finish our day in just over half an hour.

Some dramatic MotoGP news: Marc Marquez has had to have surgery after breaking his little finger on his left hand when he crashed a dirt bike in training today.

Honda phrased its statement "he has not been ruled out", which has a slightly ominous air...

Marc Marquez

WRC - Argentina: Everyone's expecting this to be a very tough stage, with a running time of about half an hour. Meeke took it very easy here earlier, and ended up with a much-reduced lead as a result.

Here's Meeke's description of the stage:

"For me this is the trickiest stage of the rally – even with the first 14 kilometres cut out of it.

"We never got to look at that part of the road, but from the pictures I've seen, you would have struggled to get a tractor through there.

"But the rest of it is definitely not easy. The corners are quite tight, there's lots of tall grass either side and it's so narrow in places.

"You're coming into stuff at high speed and you're immediately into a short corner with no margin at all.

"And, don't forget, we have no split times this year, so you really have to be able to gauge your own rhythm to try and feel how close to the pace you are.

"When you're in the car on these stages for 30 minutes or so, it's not easy.

"On this rally, though, we're looking for our own rhythm – we just have to drive our own event. I'm not chasing a win here..."

That was what he said on Thursday, he's now leading...

WRC - Argentina: It's not looking good for Ogier's power steering. He's a minute down on VW team-mate Mikkelsen's pace at the opening split. Will he finish the stage or call it a day?

WRC - Argentina: Just as a reminder, the first group of cars through - Bertelli, Ogier, Mikkelsen and Tanak - are all way down the overall leaderboard as they're running under Rally2 following dramas on Friday.

WRC - Argentina: Here's the current standings among those that really matter this afternoon:

1 Meeke
2 Ostberg +32.6s
3 Latvala +1m07.7s
4 Sordo +1m21.8s
5 Evans +1m57.5s
6 Prokop +4m35.9s
7 Neuville +4m47.7s
8 Al Qassimi +8m10.3s

And that lot take to the start in this order:

Neuville - Ostberg - Evans - Latvala - Sordo - Prokop - Meeke - Al Qassimi

WRC - Argentina: Not quite one third of the way through the stage, Mikkelsen has gained 1m20s on the hobbled Ogier.

They're running three minutes apart on the road - you'd have to expect the world champion will pull over to let his team-mate through.

WRC - Argentina: Mikkelsen is still quickest, but Neuville is within 2s of him at the first split.

Neuville is part of the closest battle on paper, as he's closed to within 12s of Prokop for sixth. But realistically at the rate Neuville's been closing on the Ford privateer, he'll rapidly be through.

The Hyundai man lost several minutes when he had to change a damaged tyre yesterday.

WRC - Argentina: Victory contender Ostberg is only third quickest at split one, behind Mikkelsen and Neuville.

WRC - Argentina: Looks like the VWs of Ogier and Mikkelsen will be swapping places on the road any moment now as the Norwegian's healthy car catches the Frenchman's power-steering-less version.

Either that or Ogier's about to make Mikkelsen very grumpy.

There was a bit of controversy yesterday when Neuville tapped the back of Mikkelsen after catching him on a stage while the Polo was running with broken suspension.

Mikkelsen felt the restrictions on radio communication were causing dangerous situations, though Neuville's recounting of the incident sounded like his punt of the VW was partly through mischief.

WRC - Argentina: Bertelli, today's road-sweeper after his Friday crash, has reached the end of the stage.

WRC - Argentina: Latvala has taken 4s out of Ostberg at split one. There's a 35s gap between them in second and third right now.

WRC - Argentina: Rally leader Meeke is about to begin this stage.

WRC - Argentina: Mikkelsen says Ogier moved out of his way "very nicely". No dramas on the stage, but the Norwegian reveals he picked up a puncture on the road section out of service. That's different.

WRC - Argentina: Ogier makes it to the stage end nearly four minutes slower than Mikkelsen.

That makes little difference to his overall position after yesterday's problem, though.

"It wasn't fixable, unfortunately," says Ogier of his power steering failure. "We wanted to stop but finally we decided to go on.

"We agreed with the team that we could stop because it was really difficult, but after I'd started the stage I decided to go to the end."

Fair play to the champ, who now looks understandably knackered.

WRC - Argentina: No word yet on why Sordo is stopped on the stage, but his Hyundai remains parked.

That's going to elevate Evans to fourth and probably Neuville to fifth, as the Belgian is likely to vault Prokop on this one.

WRC - Argentina: Latvala's gains over Ostberg are steadying as the stage goes on. He's still about 6s quicker than the Citroen, but with a 35s gap between them and three stages left, that's not going to make much difference.

At least Latvala will have less pressure from behind with Sordo gone.

WRC - Argentina: Past split two, and Meeke is 2s faster than Latvala and 9s faster than Ostberg. That's just what he needed after this morning's wobbles.

WRC - Argentina: Neuville is in and second fastest so far. Prokop's car has been pretty shy about registering splits today, so we won't know for a while if Neuville will be taking the Czech independent's place, but we suspect he will be.

WRC - Argentina: Ostberg and Latvala continue to set a pretty equal pace in the middle section of the stage.

The VW gained 6s on the Citroen early on, but since then those gains have halted.

WRC - Argentina: Ostberg comes in third fastest so far behind Mikkelsen and Neuville.

He says he started off pushing hard then decided to back off due to the roughness of the stage.

"It's a very important second place," says Ostberg - underlining that he won't be trying to hunt down Meeke.

Right now he's also doing a good job of staying clear of Latvala too.

WRC - Argentina: Meeke remains slightly faster than both Latvala and Ostberg as he passes split three. His lead could be back towards 40s.

WRC - Argentina: Evans finishes the stage fourth fastest. He's going to move up to the same position overall with Sordo out.

WRC - Argentina: Latvala is now 7.1s faster than Ostberg on this stage as he tries to chase the Citroen down for second.

WRC - Argentina: Not a lot in it between Mikkelsen and Meeke for the stage win at the moment. The Citroen is just 0.8s slower than the VW at the middle split.

WRC - Argentina: Latvala takes precisely 10s out of Ostberg on that stage, meaning a gap of 25s between them in second and third heading into tomorrow's two-stage decider.