M-Sport’s Elfyn Evans continues to lead Rally Argentina despite his substantial lead being cut due to not one, but two punctured tyres on rocky and rough stages on Saturday morning.
The D-MACK backed Ford driver started the second day of the South American event with a stage win on Tanti; now his lead is over one minute.
Trouble also befell overnight second-place man Mads Østberg who was caught by Thierry Neuville after the fast Estonian was held back with hydraulic issues.
Then on the long Los Gigantes stage things started to go wrong for Evans when he only finished fifth after developing a slow puncture. The Welshman’s luck seemed to be running out when he then damaged another tyre by running wide on the Boca del Arroyo stage, dropping back even further, only eighth fastest on the stage.
This necessitated him to refit the tyre with the slow puncture to get back to the service park. But despite all the turmoil, Evans’ lead was 44.1s going into the afternoon loop of stages.
Østberg’s issues in the morning left him without a handbrake, and he also destroyed his Fiesta WRC’s diffuser in a water-splash that caused dramas for most of the field. The Norwegian was however able sort his hydraulics out before the start of the next stage end ended the morning with a second fasted time on Boca del Arroyo which brought him back into contention just 8.9s shy of Neuville and 4.1s ahead of the hard charging Ott Tänak.
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