SpeedAgro Rally Argentina, round four of this year’s FIA World Rally Championship, should have started this morning. Given the form of the previous three rounds, here’s what we think would have happened through the mountains and over the pampas of the Córdoba region in the next three days.
The challenge
The route was a blend of days one and three from last year, while Saturday was drafted in from five years ago.
The only change on the opening day came on SS3 (which doubled as SS6). This time the Amboy stage finished in Santa Mónica rather than Yacanto, shortening the test by 5.84 miles and the loop by 11.68 miles.
After a Thursday night superspecial through the streets of Villa Carlos Paz, starting at 1908, Friday took the crews south through Alta Gracia and on to San Agustin after an 0730 service. Back in service for 1225, there was a repeat of the morning’s three stages before the cars were back at the end of day one at 1800.
Saturday was 280 competitive metres shorter than last year, with Capilla del Monte – San Marcos shortened by 700m from 2015. San Marcos – San Gregorio offered the only completely new mileage on the route, with the first 4.14 miles off the line previously unseen. The third stage in the loop was La Cañada – Rio Pinto. The first 13.77 miles of were the last 13.77 miles of San Marcos – Characato in 2015. And the last 11.37 miles were used in 2018 as the last part of the Cuchilla Nevasa – Rio Pintos test.
Saturday was the longest day, both in mileage (90.87 competitive compared with 75.22 on Friday and just 33.03 miles on Sunday) and in time away from service. The first car was into service at 0635 ahead of the stages in the hills around La Cumbre.
Sunday was a carbon copy of last year, with an 0745 departure from service sending the cars west to Copina – El Cóndor and Mina Clavero – Giulio Cesare. The crews were then regrouped and re-ordered ahead of the second run up El Cóndor, which formed the points-paying powerstage.
The ceremonial finish back in Carlos Paz was set for 1443.
The running order
Victory on last month’s Rally México promoted Sébastien Ogier to the top of the table, meaning he would run first on the road when the championship decamped to South America.
The cleaning effect in Argentina is rarely as bad as on the roads around León, but with recent dry weather and temperatures in the mid-80s (29 degrees celsius) expected to continue into Friday’s opening day there would have been some loose around. The upside to running first on the road is that you rarely come across the worst of the freshly exposed rocks. Instead, you’re the first person to start uncovering rocks at the side of the road as you and your 400bhp slash through the soft surface to expose potentially suspension-smashing boulders.
The other potential upside, if it had been really dry, would be for Ogier to escape in clear air and leave his rivals struggling with worsening dust in the slower sections of the stages in the Calamuchita valley.
Ogier’s Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mates Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanperä would have been second and fourth on the road with Thierry Neuville (Hyundai Motorsport) third.
Defending champion Ott Tänak was fifth with M-Sport Ford World Rally Team pair Teemu Suninen and Esapekka Lappi sixth and seventh.
Toyota Gazoo Racing
#17 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia
If Rally Argentina isn’t rescheduled later this season (and it’s looking increasingly doubtful that it will), the loss of this year’s event would mean this was the one that got away from the six-time champion. Incredibly, Ogier has never won the event in 10 starts. The closest he came was when he finished the 2016 event 14.3s behind Hayden Paddon, having gone into the final test just 2.6s off the Kiwi leader.
Question is, would Ogier have pushed and risked more to rectify a single blot on his copybook? Unlikely. A long-game approach has delivered half a dozen titles already and it would have been more of the same in Argentina this week.
If there’s one question over the Ogier-Yaris WRC combo, it’s how the car would have worked for the Frenchman in the ruts. Don’t forget, we’ve seen this car struggle on the rough sections of slower rallies – like Turkey – in the past. Then again, Argentina doesn’t have too much really rough, slow bits.
#33 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin
Missing that 2017 win by seven-tenths of a second still stings a bit and this would have been the perfect opportunity to put that right. Victory in Sweden allied to a strong podium on the opening round in the French Alps has shown the Welshman to be at the very top of his game right now. He’s settled into the Yaris WRC quickly and that comfort in the car has offered him the ability to exploit the Toyota’s sweet spot
#69 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen
Who can forget the 19-year-old Finn’s debut in Argentina? Certainly not the lady sitting in the car he landed on after a monster shunt in the Mina Clavero stage two years ago. Rovanperä went into the final morning of the 2018 event holding a narrow lead over his Škoda team-mate Pontus Tidemand and it all went wrong in a spectacular top-gear shunt.
Crucially, Rovanperä understood what had gone wrong – he knew why the crash happened and the mistake he made in the recce. He would have put that wrong right this time around. And hopefully the organisers wouldn’t have parked cars in that place again…
It would have been fascinating to see how Kalle coped with Argentina. It’s a rally which tempts and teases with its potential for big speed, but a ballsy approach has to be tempered by the experience of knowing how to read the grip and the surface changes.
Hyundai Motorsport
#11 Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul
Two wins and a second place from his last three trips to Argentina have to mark the amiable Belgian out as a favourite for this year too. Third on the road’s a good place, with some of the loose swept and not too many rocks found. His victory last year – when he took the lead on the final San Rosa stage on day one and remained in P1 until the end – came from a driver completely at one with the car on an event where that’s so important. That Neuville’s the only one of the ‘big three’ who stayed with the same car from last year would have counted for something this week.
#8 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja
Having said that, Ott Tänak stepped out of a Ford Fiesta WRC and into Toyota’s Yaris WRC and won on his Argentine debut with the Japanese team in 2018. And then some. Remember that drive? The Estonian spoke exclusively to DirtFish about what he did two years ago in his guide to this rally. He was sensational.
Rightly, Tänak points to Hyundai’s pedigree on this event. Hyundai has won three of the last four (including Paddon’s sensational 2016 victory) and the i20 is tailored to the precise demands of rallying in this part of the world. You get the feeling, Tänak had Argentina down as a potential target event and his second place last time out in México was definite proof that he was getting more comfortable with his new berth.
#6 Dani Sordo/Carlos del Barrio
In one of the more pointless exclusives of the season, DirtFish can ‘reveal’ Dani Sordo would have taken control of the third i20 Coupe WRC in Argentina. And why wouldn’t he? With 13 starts in Villa Carlos Paz, every time he’s finished the event he’s been in the points. When it comes to this place, Dani is Mr Consistent. It was also the first foreign WRC round he started outside of his native Spain and, being a Spanish-speaker, he’s massively popular in those parts.
There might have been the odd eyebrow raised at Hyundai’s decision not to bring its eight-time Argentina winner Sébastien Loeb – but the Frenchman hasn’t competed in Córdoba since 2013… that last of his eight wins.
M-Sport Ford World Rally Team
#4 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm
The M-Sport Ford World Rally Team was the team coming to Argentina with the biggest step in the car. There were both engine and aero upgrades planned for the season’s second trip across the Atlantic. The numbers on the engine were reckoned to be enormously encouraging and an aero tweak would have gone down well in the high speed sections.
Lappi crashed out on the Santa Rosa stage last year and with only one other visit prior to that, it’s unrealistic to have considered him as a potential winner. But, if everything had clicked with the new bits, the Finn would quite possibly have been troubling the podium.
#3 Teemu Suninen/Jarmo Lehtinen
Like his team-mate, starting his third Argentina. The Suninen-Fiesta package didn’t set the world alight last season, but another year’s experience and the aforementioned upgrades to the motor around him would have cast a different light on this year’s event.
#44 Gus Greensmith/Elliott Edmondson
Two Argentinian outings in an R5 car would have given the Briton a solid idea of his way around the place, but this is another event where experience counts in World Rally Cars. The aero effect of these cars can be huge and the commitment in cornering speeds massive – which could quite possibly have worked in Greensmith’s favour; he’s shown on plenty of occasions he’s not scared of it. A sensible approach would have brought a solid result on a rally which can feature a high rate of attrition.
The weather
Warm and sunny weather would bring first day Friday temperatures of around 85 degrees Fahrenheit. But from sun down, the weather is scheduled to change with cooler temperatures and rain on Saturday and even cooler conditions with more rain and the potential for thunderstorms on Sunday.
The result?
We’ve taken care of that (with a little help from our friends – you!) and we’ll bring you the predicted top six at the end of #DirtFishArgentinaWeek on Sunday.
