Rally Argentina? Ask the drivers and they'll answer practically unanimously that it's one of the best rounds of the entire World Rally Championship. To justify their claim, they'll cite the warm welcome, the enthusiasm of the spectators and the staggeringly beautiful landscapes to name but a few.
The rally route around Cordoba features an exceptionally broad spectrum of surface types. From Friday's sandy tracks to the slippery lanes of Leg 2 and the rocky mountain passes of the final day, there is effectively something for all tastes. Some parts of the rally are reminiscent of Greece, others of Portugal. And when the heavens open, there are of course the eternal reflex references to Great Britain!
Yet while the drivers revel in the Pampas, the South American round remains a reasonably complex one to call for tyre manufacturers who do not have the possibility of carrying out pre-event testing in the weeks leading up to the rally as they do in Europe.
So given the restriction that limits teams to just two types of tread pattern for any one event, it is important to develop and select the compounds and constructions of the tyres with special care in order to cover all the ground conditions possible.
Tommi Makinen will start the event with a six point lead in the
FIA World Drivers' series over Carlos Sainz, while Mitsubishi has a lead of 18 points (more than the maximum which can be gained on an individual event) in front of Ford in the FIA World Manufacturers' series.
Of note is that Harri Rovanpera and Francois Delecour, both in the top five of the FIA Drivers' Championship, have not been registered by their teams to contest this event.
In Group N, there has been a change in results for the Portugal Rally. The cars of the first two finishers in the category (Marcos Ligato and Manfred Stohl) were declared irregular. This means the new leader before Rally Argentina is the Argentine Gabriel Pozzo (13 points) ahead of Olivier Gillet, Stig-Olof Walfridsson and now Pedro da Silva all with 10.
News from the teams:
Mitsubishi.
Mitsubishi will bring a new car for Makinen to Argentina, with the teams activities since Catalunya split between testing and development of the new car.
