This was supposed to be in the week of SpeedAgro Rally Argentina 2020. In its absence, DirtFish will be celebrating Rally Argentina all week – and we’ll do the same for every round of the World Rally Championship cancelled or postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Here are more details of what we’ve got in store for you between now and Sunday, plus how you can get involved.
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Should have been on an aeroplane right now. Somewhere over the Atlantic. Which way I would have been going depends very much on which iteration of the 2020 WRC calendar you’re looking at.
Version one would have had me east-bound, surfing the jet stream home from Santiago and the Chile’s second ever WRC round. Version two would have had me out of Heathrow and bound for Buenos Aires and Rally Argentina.
Until mid-way through round three, this week was all about round four. But the mid-México announcement of Argentina’s postponement courtesy of the coronavirus changed all that. This week should have been all about South American fervour and millions of people watching the world’s fastest cars and drivers on some of the most amazing roads. Rally Argentina will be back.
In its absence, you can rely on DirtFish to bring you as much Argentinian flavour as possible. We’ll tell you what we would have seen this week, look back at the best of these rallies and delve into what makes Argentina the challenge it is. We’ll have great stories and incredible, exclusive insight delivered by DirtFish driver and reigning World Rally champion Ott Tänak.
Our planned coverage is so comprehensive, the people who really matter will be reading it.
People like David Eli. David is Rally Argentina’s general coordinator. He and his team should have been getting ready for the recce, with the foundations in place for another classic round of the championship. But instead, they’ll be reading DirtFish.
“It’s really interesting to hear the plans DirtFish has to cover our event this week,” said Eli. “Naturally, we all want to be out on the stages and competing on the fantastic roads we have in and around Córdoba, but because of this complicated pandemic that’s not possible this week.
“While we stay at home, it is great we can remember some great memories and hear some great stories about our rally on DirtFish.com.”
And we need your help in finding out who would have won this week.
In real terms, of course, we’ll never know, but we all know what we think. We’ve all got our own ideas on whether Tänak could have gone one better than round three and scored his first win aboard a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC.
The Estonian’s pace is proven in South America; remember his dominant victory in 2018?
But then there’s his Hyundai team-mate Thierry Neuville, twice a winner in the last three years in Villa Carlos Paz.
And what about Sébastien Ogier? Ten times the 2013-’18 champion has started in Córdoba but 10 times he’s missed out on the podium’s top step. Would that have finally changed on Sunday?
Or would his Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans have eclipsed the heartache of missing out on victory by seven-tenths of a second in 2017?
We want your thoughts. More than that, we want your top six finishers.
Use the hashtag #DirtFishArgentinaWeek to contact us on our social media channels and tell us what you think the result would have been.
We will award six points for first place, five for second all the way down to a single point for sixth place.
On Sunday, we’ll add everybody’s points up and give you the DirtFish result for the SpeedAgro Rally Argentina in the week that wasn’t.
To start the ball rolling, here’s my own top six prediction: 1 Neuville; 2 Evans; 3 Tänak; 4 Ogier; 5 Lappi; 6 Suninen.
