Andreas Aigner put in an outstanding drive to score his first victory in the
FIA Production Car World Rally Championship on the Rally Argentina on Sunday, the second round in the series.
Aigner led virtually throughout and while Toshi Arai took the spoils in SS1, the
Red Bull Rally Team man soon flew past and by the middle of the first day had built up a 27.3 second lead.
He then controlled the pace from the front and in the end took the victory by just over a minute, despite a bit of a scare in the final proper test, the 16.06 kilometre run through El Condor.
"This win feels really good and I'm happy now we've finished," he reflected. "The last long stage was so difficult with lots of fog, so slippery and muddy - just like Turkey '06. We hit a big rock with the front right tyre and my hand was really hurting for the super special stage.
"But this is great for our P-WRC campaign this year as I was a bit negative after going off in Sweden. We've made mistakes in the past so this is a good chance and I have to really thanks all our sponsors. Greece and Turkey are really good rallies for us so I hope we can do well there too."
Local 'guest' driver Sebastian Beltran meanwhile drove his Lancer to second, gaining a spot in the penultimate test when Nasser Al-Attiyah had an engine problem and was forced out. The two had been split by just 6.6 seconds after Beltran was quickest in SS19, cutting the deficit by 9 seconds.
"I really wanted this position," said Beltran. "It means so much to me and to the Argentinian rally fans to have a home driver so high up. We gave it everything this morning, we were really pushing. Fantastic!"
Jari Ketomaa took the final spot on the podium in his Impreza and the result moves the rookie to the top of the PWRC standings.
The Finn had been running as low as eleventh on day 1, but he powered his way up the leaderboard and a string of top five stages time had put him fourth by half-way through day two.
![Andreas Aigner (AUT) / Klaus Wicha (GER), Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX [Production Car WRC]. Rally Argentina, March 27-30th 2008.](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/423614.jpg)
