PICTURE: Clutch failure costs Henning at end.

OMV Peugeot's Henning Solberg came within one kilometre of taking fifth on the Rally Argentina on Sunday, when the clutch on his 307 WRC gave up on the last stage, the final run through the Cordoba 2.20 km super-special.

Prior to his technical problem he had been comfortably on course to take four points, although thanks to the SupeRally system he was still classified at the finish. The five minute penalty for failing to complete SS22 though dropped him down to seventh, behind Daniel Sordo and Chris Atkinson.

Speaking about the incident on his first outing on the event he was philosophical: "That is part of the game. It can happen anytime," he noted.

"Of course, it is a bitter pill when you're so close to the finish, but there is still a positive side to it. For now we are seventh and know that we were actually much faster. It would have been much worse had we reached this place because we simply weren't able to attack anymore. Therefore I really mustn't be dissatisfied."

Indeed the event had a number of good points for the Norwegian and he even managed to set the joint quickest stage time on SS16 - when he and his brother, Petter, both completed the 16.35 kilometre Las Bajadas-Villa del Dique stage in 8 minutes 50.5 seconds.