Volkswagen motorsport director Jost Capito is confident the German firm’s presence in the World Rally Championship will help attract more global commercial interest in the series.

Capito, who had been working for Ford in America before returning to Europe to take over from Kris Nissen, admitted he had followed the WRC’s troubled time closely, but added that he was confident the championship was over the worst.

“It’s time to wake the sleeping lion,” said Capito. “Volkswagen coming [to WRC] will boost the championship a lot. Volkswagen will do everything needed for the WRC and it will help in other ways, by boosting sponsorship, bringing the media back and other partners – it will help in bringing the television back. There is an issue with the promoter, we all know about that.”

Capito added that the calendar remained key to getting the WRC’s books balanced.

“Keeping the logistcal costs [in check] are key, nobody gets anything out of that money spent, so we need to make sure that the right rally follows the right rally,” he said.

He confirmed that Volkswagen would be backing a Brazilian round of the WRC, adding: “Brazil is a very important market for VW, so it would be good to have an event in Brazil, but it has to be right too for the security side, the safety side and everything.

“But, in principle, Brazil is a very important market and it would be good if we could get Brazil to fit into the calendar.”

Two-time World Rally Champion Marcus Gronholm has confirmed he will return to motorsport and contest a full programme of Global Rallycross events in America this year.

Gronholm will form part of the Best Buy Team along with British driver David Binks. They will both drive 600bhp Ford Fiestas built by Andreas Eriksson and Olsberg’s Motorsport Evolution firm.

The Finn tested his Fiesta for two days in Los Angeles last week before confirming his commitment to a season-long schedule for the first time since retiring from a 17-year professional WRC career at the end of 2007. The 44-year-old Finn won 30 of the 152 WRC rounds he started.

Gronholm said: “It’s great to be back in business with a full programme and a clear championship to aim at. What’s more, there is such a buzz around GRC, I think it is a form of motorsport that is set to explode. It’s great for the stadium audience, great for the TV viewer with 70ft jumps over your competitors and fast and furious racing that delivers results quickly. It’s simply addictive.”

Gronholm and Binks will face tough competition in the six-round GRC, which starts in Charlotte on May 26. Last year’s champion Tanner Foust and Monster World Rally Team star Ken Block are two of the big names who will line up against the Best Buy team.

Gronholm added: “There are all kinds of drivers coming into the series from very different action sport backgrounds, so I while I am 100 per cent clear that our ambition is to win, we’ll just see how we get on in Charlotte and take it from there. We’ve tested well, the OMSE-prepared Ford Fiesta feels great and frankly I can’t wait to kick off.”

The six-round series features five events that partner with NASCAR, IndyCar and the X Games. The opener takes place on May 26 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, running as part of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Coca-Cola 600 bill.

The final round of this year’s World Rally Championship – the Catalunya Rally – will include a stage through the centre of host town Salou.

The Spanish event, which shifts from its October date to November 8-11, will retain its mixed surface format, with the opening day running the gravel content, including a completely new stage.

The Salou-based event will include 251 competitive miles, virtually identical to last season. The popular Terra Alta test has had an extra five miles added, making it the longest mixed-surface stage of the rally at just over 27 miles.

The seafront stage will run on Friday (November 9) evening. The 1.2-mile blast runs parallel to the beach, where the spectators will be located.

The second and third days of the event will run entirely on asphalt, including classics such as El Priorat and the return of Riudecanyes. The powerstage will be the 2.5-mile Serra d’Almos stage.

Citroen protege Thierry Neuville has moved a step closer to contesting the full World Rally Championship schedule after Nasser Al-Attiyah handed the Belgian his Qatar Citroen for Rally New Zealand.

Neuville was initially confirmed for nine events in the Citroen Junior entry, with further rallies dependent on his performance.

Al-Attiyah has to miss the New Zealand event in order to train for the London Olympics, where he is competing in skeet shooting. The 2011 Dakar Rally winner therefore requested that Neuville take his car for the 22-24 June event.

“We are official entrants in the World Championship and it is mandatory for us to compete in every round,” said Al-Attiyah. “It didn’t take much thinking time to realise who should take my place in the #7 Citroen DS3 WRC.

“I trust Thierry, but most of all I want him to be able to gain as much experience from taking part in this event as possible and for it to be beneficial to him.”

Neuville said he was touched by Al-Attiyah’s gesture.

“This is more than just a great opportunity, it is a real honour for me to be trusted in this way by the team,” he said.

Neuville took the best result of his WRC rookie campaign so far with fifth in the last round in Argentina – albeit running under Rally 2 after an early incident.

Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala has tested a rally car again for the first time since breaking his collarbone in a skiing accident last month.

The Finn drove the Ford Fiesta RS WRC for two days in Sardinia, completing the test on Friday evening – a month to the day since the training accident happened.

Latvala completed more than 270 miles of driving at competitive speed as he prepares for his return to the World Rally Championship on the sixth round of the series, the Acropolis Rally which starts in Loutraki on May 24.

“I am feeling very good. I am very happy after the test,” Latvala told AUTOSPORT. “I have had the physiotherapist who was working with me in Finland here with me in the test – this has been a good help.

“We took the first day a little easier, to see how the arm will cope and take all the impacts. But on the second day we drove more. Today [day two of the test] we did three 30-kilometre runs. In Greece, the longest stage is 25 kilometres, so I am feeling confident for that.”

Latvala admitted if the test had been earlier, he would not have made it.

“The recovery schedule has been tight,” he said. “If we had needed to test last week, there would not have been the chance to test, but four weeks is just enough time [since the accident].”

Organisers of Rally GB have confirmed the route for Britain’s round of the World Rally Championship.

As predicted by AUTOSPORT, the itinerary includes a first ever visit to the Celtic Manor hotel, where a superspecial stage will be run on the second evening of the event. The central service will return to Cardiff, with a remote service held in Newtown on Friday lunchtime.

The qualifying stage runs in Walters Arena in south Wales on Wednesday September 12, before the ceremonial start in Llandudno on the north coast the following evening.

Friday will be a tough, top-to-bottom drive through the country, including stages in Dyfnant, Hafren (including Sweet Lamb) and Myherin ‘ all run twice before arriving in Cardiff later that night.

Saturday and Sunday are slightly easier days running out of central service in Cardiff, with Crychan, Epynt and Halfway confirmed for day two and Port Talbot (formerly known as Margam Park), Rheola and Walters Arena (which will be the powerstage) on the final day.

Rally GB chief executive Andrew Coe said: “In such a pivotal year for Britain and its role as a venue for world-class sport, it’s a real privilege to be able to take Wales Rally GB to Celtic Manor Resort this year, as well as continue last year’s initiative of delivering a truly pan-Welsh route.

“We made huge strides forward last year in terms of embracing the whole of Wales with our route and we have tried hard to build on that this year, while also bringing more innovation and fresh-thinking to the event.”

Jost Capito took the reigns as new head of Volkswagen Motorsport on Wednesday, assuming the role occupied by Kris Nissen.

Capito joins Volkswagen from Ford, where he was the director of global performance vehicles and motorsport business development.

His exit from Ford was confirmed in March.

Capito, 53, was officially welcomed on Wednesday and introduced to the staff.

“I’m very much looking forward to working together with this strong team and have a lot of respect for the successes that have been achieved so far,” said Capito. “My first impression is that the squad is working with great enthusiasm and operates in a likeable and friendly atmosphere.

“Big and interesting tasks are awaiting all of us and we will tackle them with high motivation. My thanks also go to Kris Nissen, who has done very good preparatory work and who will continue to play a part in this endeavour in order to assure a harmonious handover.”

From 2013, Volkswagen will be competing in the World Rally Championship with the Polo R WRC.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton has admitted he hopes not to have to use team orders again during the 2012 World Rally Championship season.

The Belgian instructed Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen to hold positions one and two on last week’s Rally Argentina after the Ford team slipped back and was unable to challenge Citroen in South America.

Ford’s sole finisher on the event was Petter Solberg, who claimed sixth position, although Dani Sordo had run third until a final-stage alternator problem.

Matton, who took the decision to tell his drivers – split by just 2.1 seconds at the time – to hold station midway through Saturday, said he hoped the rivalry with Ford would be renewed so that there would be no need for team orders in the future.

“A lot of things have been happening at the start of the rallies in this year’s championship,” said Matton, “and I hope that in the next rallies there will be a good fight with all of the drivers and the gap will be very close right until the end.

“Last year we saw many rallies where the event was decided by just a few seconds. But it is not my fault that our two drivers haven’t been so much help for the other drivers…”

Andreas Mikkelsen has admitted his performance against Volkswagen Motorsport team-mate Sebastien Ogier on last week’s Rally Argentina exceeded his own expectations.

The Norwegian, who is on loan from Skoda UK to Volkswagen Motorsport for half of this year’s World Rally Championship, was beating seven-time world rally winner Ogier for much of the South American event – despite it being Mikkelsen’s first time on the stages.

Mikkelsen’s run came to an end when the suspension failed on his Fabia on the final day.

“I was really pleased with the speed we showed against Sebastien,” said Mikkelsen. “When we competed against him in Sweden, it was different because I had a lot of experience on the snow, but for me this was a new event and for him, he was nearly winning here last year.

“I have to say, I didn’t really expect this kind of performance – I am really happy with it.”

Mikkelsen’s main programme this year is the defence of his Intercontinental Rally Challenge title with Skoda UK. The Norwegian leads the 2012 standings heading to next week’s fourth round in Corsica.

Rally Argentina clerk of the course David Eli reckons his event could form a strong partnership with a Brazilian round of the World Rally Championship if the series adds a second South American date for 2013.

Brazil is one of two candidate events which will be considered by the FIA this year for possible inclusion on the 2013 calendar, with South Africa its main rival. AUTOSPORT understands that South Africa is currently favourite for the slot.

Eli believes linking the Argentina and Brazil rounds would be the best solution for the WRC.

“A cargo ship between Europe and Brazil is taking 10 days, but between Europe and Argentina it is a minimum of 16 days – so it makes sense for the cars to go to Brazil first,” he said. “Normally, after this event, the cargo goes from here to New Zealand. The logical way around this is for the WRC to go from Europe to Brazil; Brazil to Argentina and Argentina to Chile and then on and down to New Zealand [via the Pacific]. From Brazil to Chile, the WRC would travel all the way by truck.”

One option would be to run the two South American events a week apart, but Citroen team boss Yves Matton is not in favour of this.

“I agree we can save money with the logistics [by running the two events one after the other],” said Matton. “The containers are in the same part of the world, but for me not with the gap of one weekend between the rallies.

“What do I do with the team? I cannot ask my guys to stay here for this length of time. I need to send them back to Europe and we have the gap of three or four weeks.

“Another problem could be for the promotion and communication – staying in the same area in the world for two rallies like that is maybe not the best solution.”

The WRC Commission will discuss options for the 2013 schedule next week.

Mikko Hirvonen has sung the praises of Rally Argentina’s endurance route – with the Finn suggesting that some of the new stages this year were the event’s best yet.

Hirvonen ended the event a close second to Sebastien Loeb for the second year in succession, but this time around he was sharing the Citroen team with the Frenchman.

“I liked this rally,” said Hirvonen. “I like the variation in the stages and the long ones were really nice. The one which was my favourite was stage nine [the 24-mile Intiyaco-Golpe de Agua]. This was just incredible.”

The Intiyaco stage, which ran south of the event’s Villa Carlos Paz base, provided the fastest section of the rally – the final sector which Hirvonen completed at 123mph. The fastest car down this section was averaging close to 140mph.

“That last section was maybe a bit pointless,” said Hirvonen, “it was just flat-out all the way.”

Hirvonen’s co-driver Jarmo Lehtinen admitted it was quite a strange section, saying: “For about four kilometres, I just sat there. I only had one page of notes for this section, with maybe five lines which were flat crest 250; flat crest 350; flat right over crest 600.

“On an event like the Acropolis I would have had five pages of notes for this distance. I kept looking up and thinking: ‘Hmm, we are going fast!’”

Hirvonen concluded: “Before that section, the stage was really fantastic: lots of crests and jumps and corners over crests. The car was really flying at some strange angles all of the time – it was great.”

South Africa is believed to be leading the fight for a place on next year’s World Rally Championship calendar.

AUTOSPORT understands there will be one slot on the 2013 calendar for a new event, and South Africa and Brazil are vying for that position. South Africa’s bid is an event centred in Durban, while there are still three options in Brazil.

“South Africa is looking more and more likely,” a source told AUTOSPORT. “The infrastructure is in place, but there are still a few things to get sorted. Brazil, however, has a lot of work to do. We still don’t know whether the event will be in Curitiba, Rio [de Janeiro] or Sao Paulo.”

Former World Rally champion co-driver and Rally Finland clerk of the course Seppo Harjanne has worked on the route for the South African event.

WRC manager Michele Mouton was in Brazil this week to consider the potential for the nation’s first WRC round since 1982, a rally the French lady won in her Audi Quattro.

Rally Argentina clerk of the course David Eli has also been in contact with his fellow South Americans and says he is prepared to help.

“I think it would be good to have another event in this part of the world,” he said. “And, if the Rio de Janeiro event is the one which comes, then we will be helping them. The one thing we are not interested in is a rotation programme with them, we want Rally Argentina on the calendar every year.”

The 2013 calendar will be discussed at the WRC Commission meeting on May 9, with the schedule ratified by the World Motor Sport Council next month.

Ford team principal Malcolm Wilson has put to bed speculation that Dani Sordo will drive a factory Fiesta RS WRC again this season.

The Spaniard was drafted into the British team for Rally Argentina after Jari-Matti Latvala broke his collarbone in a cross-country skiing accident last month. Sordo was on course for a podium finish in Villa Carlos Paz when his Ford debut was cut short by an alternator problem on the final stage.

“Dani drove the perfect rally for us,” said Wilson, “and obviously we were very sad for him that he retired so close to the finish. This was a one-off drive, though. We have no plans for Dani to be back in the car again this season.”

There were suggestions in Argentina that Sordo, who was contracted to do the full 2012 World Rally Championship season with Prodrive’s Mini programme before this was reduced, could be drafted into the team again later this year for selected asphalt rounds, but Wilson denied this.

“Jari-Matti is our nominated driver for this year, so we can’t change him and Petter [Solberg] is our other driver,” said Wilson. “Why would we change either of those two? We wouldn’t and so it’s not going to happen.”

M-Sport managing director Malcolm Wilson has called on Ott Tanak to up his performance after the Estonian’s disappointing result on last week’s Rally Argentina.

M-Sport driver Tanak finished in 10th place, but Wilson was unhappy with a first-day performance which culminated in him going off the road and retiring on SS4.

“I have to say I was really disappointed with Ott,” said Wilson. “The target was to finish, but on the first three stages of the rally he had three self-inflicted incidents, which were all disappointing.”

Tanak suffered a puncture on stage two, steering damage on stage three and he went off the road on SS4.

“His primary objective on the rally was to finish, that was what we had discussed and agreed,” continued Wilson.

“Argentina is a very long rally, the longest, and it’s a rally that is going to remain in the championship, so it was important to get good experience of these stages. It was certainly not a rally where we needed to see his pace.”

Wilson denied there was any question marks over Tanak completing the season with M-Sport, but he added that he wanted to see an improvement from him.

The Citroen team has admitted it finds the decision to exclude Mikko Hirvonen’s car from the Rally of Portugal results for a second time ‘strange.’

Hirvonen’s winning DS3 WRC was excluded for a problem with the car’s clutch, but there was a secondary issue regarding the turbocharger, which the Rally of Portugal stewards confirmed was also an excludable offence last week.

The size of the turbine wheel in the turbo was found to be outsize the permitted tolerances.

“This is a strange decision,” said Laurent Fregosi, Citroen’s deputy technical manager.

“We know and they [the FIA] the turbine wheel increase during its life because of the temperatures and we cannot chose anything else because we order the parts from the [turbo] supplier [Garrett] chosen by the FIA.

“We receive the parts, which are correct when they are new, but then become outside the tolerances of the FIA homologation when they are running.”

Fregosi said these concerns over the turbocharger had been raised at a technical working group earlier last week, adding: “Everybody agreed there is a problem with this regulation and they will modify the tolerance – they make more tolerances – and when the regulation is revised our turbo would have been legal.”

It is believed that, under the new regulation, turbochargers will only be used once – instead of the two or three times for the current units.

“When we are working with the regulation to make the costs less in the sport,” said Fregosi, “it’s a pity that we now have to use the turbo just once – this is not in the philosophy of the regulation. Our feeling is that this [decision] is not very fair. This has nothing to do with the performance of the car.”

Citroen will not appeal the decision.

Sebastien Loeb claimed the 70th victory of his incredible World Rally Championship career, and stretched his points lead in the process, as he cruised home to win Rally Argentina.

The eight-time champion’s weekend had got off to a messy start as he spun three times on Friday morning and fell to fourth place. But a set-up change at service transformed his pace, and within two stages he was back up to first – helped by Ford driver Petter Solberg breaking his steering while leading.

Loeb’s Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen looked capable of pushing the Frenchman all the way to the finish, but with the team holding a big lead over the rest of the field, it decided to order its drivers to hold position, ensuring Loeb’s win.

Dani Sordo appeared to be on course for a podium on his one-off appearance for Ford, standing in for the injured Jari-Matti Latvala, only to retire on the rally-closing power stage with apparent mechanical problems. The Spaniard had settled for a calm run to third once it became clear he could not match the Citroens, but was denied by his last-gasp drama.

That elevated Portugal winner Mads Ostberg to third for Adapta Ford. The Norwegian was the last of the frontrunners to avoid trouble as the switching to a more endurance-style format coincided with heavy attrition.

Five of the top 10 finishers relied on Rally 2 to get back into the points. After fourth-placed Martin Prokop (Czech Ford), fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth and 10th position men Thierry Neuville (Citroen Junior), Solberg, Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford), Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar Citroen) and Ott Tanak (M-Sport) all had to rejoin with penalties after incidents. It was little consolation after missing out on a potential win, but Solberg managed to take the bonus points for being quickest on the power stage.

Volkswagen’s two S2000 class Skodas were in the top 10 for most of the weekend, despite a few incidents and delays. Andreas Mikkelsen and Sebastien Ogier had a very tight intra-team battle that only ended when the Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion suffered late suspension damage. It looked like at least one Skoda would make it into the overall top six for a while, but ultimately Neuville and Solberg’s recoveries pushed Ogier back to seventh.

Leading finishers:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen         5h34m38.8s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen            + 15.2s

 3.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford      + 3m10.4s

 4.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford       + 9m45.3s

 5.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior  + 11m17.6s

 6.  Petter Solberg     Ford            + 12m02.2s

 7.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda        + 12m25.3s

 8.  Evgeny Novikov     M-Sport Ford    + 21m10.2s

 9.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Qatar Citroen   + 28m22.6s

10.  Ott Tanak          M-Sport Ford    + 37m19.5s
Other WRC finishers:
12.  Eliseo Salazar     Prodrive Mini   + 41m15.9s
WRC retirements:
     Dani Sordo         Ford                  SS19

     Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini         SS17

     Paolo Nobre        Portugal Mini         SS17

     Daniel Oliveira    Brazil Ford           SS13
Leading power stage results:
Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Petter Solberg     Ford               2m32.9s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen             + 1.1s

 3.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Qatar Citroen       + 1.5s

 4.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen             + 1.7s

 5.  Evgeny Novikov     M-Sport             + 3.3s

Sebastien Loeb remains on course for the 70th win of his World Rally Championship career after making it safely through the series’ longest stage on Sunday morning in Argentina.

With Citroen having asked Loeb and second-placed team-mate Mikko Hirvonen to hold position on Saturday, there were no upsets on the 65.74-kilometre Matadero-Ambul stage that kicked off the final day.

Despite the team instruction, Hirvonen inadvertently closed to within 0.2 seconds of taking the lead from Loeb on the following Mina Clavero/Giulio Cesare stage, before backing off again and letting his team-mate re-establish a 1.3s cushion on El Condor/Copina, the final stage before midday service.

Dani Sordo escaped a spin on the long stage to continue in third for Ford, ahead of Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford). Martin Prokop still looks set for fifth in the Czech National Ford, with sixth likely to be the limit of Thierry Neuville’s charge back up the order for Citroen Junior under Rally 2.

The tight battle between the two Volkswagen Skodas came to an end on SS15, when Andreas Mikkelsen sustained suspension damage, leaving Sebastien Ogier in a lonely seventh – although Ford’s Petter Solberg, fastest on all three Sunday stages so far, is closing in and is now 48s behind heading into the final loop.

Leading positions after SS16:

Pos  Driver            Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Sebastien Loeb    Citroen         5h06m35.7s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen    Citroen             + 1.3s

 3.  Dani Sordo        Ford             + 1m38.1s

 4.  Mads Ostberg      Adapta Ford      + 3m01.6s

 5.  Martin Prokop     Czech Ford       + 9m14.1s

 6.  Thierry Neuville  Citroen Junior  + 11m08.0s

 7.  Sebastien Ogier   VW Skoda        + 11m37.3s

 8.  Petter Solberg    Ford            + 12m25.5s

 9.  Armindo Araujo    Portugal Mini   + 15m45.5s

10.  Evgeny Novikov    M-Sport Ford    + 21m13.9s

Sebastien Loeb will lead Rally Argentina by 7.2 seconds when the final leg commences on Sunday morning after an uneventful run through the superspecial that closed Saturday night’s action.

Although day three kicks off with the challenge of the mammoth 65-kilometre Matadero-Ambul stage, Loeb looks secure in the lead with Citroen having asked him and second-placed team-mate Mikko Hirvonen to hold station given the lack of threat from behind.

Dani Sordo (Ford) and Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford) remain third and fourth, ahead of Martin Prokop’s Czech Ford and the Volkswagen-entered S2000 Skodas of Sebastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen.

Citroen Junior’s Thierry Neuville took the second stage win of his World Rally career on the superspecial, and has a shot at catching the Skodas on Sunday.

The only position change on the six-kilometre evening stage was Petter Solberg (Ford) moving ahead of Armindo Araujo’s Portugal Mini to take ninth.

Leading positions after SS13:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen         3h57m40.8s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen             + 7.2s

 3.  Dani Sordo         Ford             + 1m46.9s

 4.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford      + 3m06.1s

 5.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford       + 9m22.5s

 6.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda        + 10m26.7s

 7.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda        + 10m31.7s

 8.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior  + 11m48.0s

 9.  Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini   + 14m08.8s

10.  Petter Solberg     Ford            + 14m17.7s

Ford team principal Malcolm Wilson has admitted Petter Solberg’s target of fifth place on Rally Argentina could now be out of range.

Solberg retired from the lead on the opening leg of the event on Friday and started Saturday’s stages under Rally 2 regulations in 11th place – chasing fifth and 10 points. The five-minute gap between his Fiesta RS WRC and the similar car of Martin Prokop in fifth is now looking like a tall order going into the final day of the event.

Wilson said: “We had targeted fifth for Petter when he came back, but I think that’s looking too optimistic. There’s still a difficult day ahead, though, so we’ll keep pushing on and see what happens.”

The Cumbrian added that Solberg’s string of fastest times through the second day was pleasing after a troubled day on Friday.

“This isn’t what we came here to do, we came to win, but if we keep going the way we are then we’re going to keep both manufacturers’ and drivers’ championships well and truly alive,” said Wilson. “Everybody can see the car is quite clearly capable of winning.”

Solberg added that the style of stages was not helping his fightback.

“There are too many fast sections,” he said. “If there was more in the tight and twisty then I would be able to get more time back, but like this it’s going to be tough.”

Solberg will start Sunday’s final leg in ninth place.

Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen are now 7.8 seconds apart at the head of the Rally Argentina field after Citroen ordered the pair to hold station.

A tight battle had been brewing between the two team-mates following Saturday’s first loop of stages, but with no threat from behind, Citroen requested that they maintain position for the run to the finish.

Nearest rival Dani Sordo (Ford) became even less of a threat on SS11 when he picked up a puncture. The Spaniard made it through the stage but is now 1m48.3s off the lead, though still over a minute clear of fourth-placed Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford).

With Nasser Al-Attiyah having to retire his Qatar Citroen after breaking his suspension on the final stage of the morning loop, Martin Prokop’s Czech Ford has been elevated to fifth.

Sebastien Ogier passed his Volkswagen Skoda team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen for sixth on SS12, as the two S2000 underdogs maintained their lofty overall positions.

Thierry Neuville is up to eighth for Citroen Junior, having flown past the struggling Armindo Araujo (Portugal Mini). The Portuguese driver is now on the brink of losing ninth to Ford’s Petter Solberg. Like Neuville, Solberg is running under Rally 2 after retiring on Friday, and won all three stages on the latest loop.

Crews are now travelling back to service prior to another run through the superspecial to conclude the Saturday action.

Leading positions after SS12:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen         3h52m45.7s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen             + 7.8s

 3.  Dani Sordo         Ford             + 1m48.3s

 4.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford      + 2m55.5s

 5.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford       + 9m16.0s

 6.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda        + 10m20.1s

 7.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda        + 10m25.9s

 8.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior  + 11m53.7s

 9.  Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini   + 14m09.3s

10.  Petter Solberg     Ford            + 14m09.9s

Former Formula 1 racer Eliseo Salazar has admitted Rally Argentina is proving tougher than he expected, with the 57-year-old describing Friday’s opening day as harder than a day on Dakar.

Salazar, who is driving a Mini John Cooper Works WRC this week, has competed on the Dakar twice, but the 120-mile opening day of Rally Argentina was a tall order for the World Rally Car rookie.

“In Dakar, OK, you do five or six hours and then you go relax and go in the hotel,” said Salazar. “But yesterday was crazy! I woke up at 0430 yesterday and at 10 o’clock last night we were still going. And on this event you are going flat-out and pushing as hard as you can, whereas in Dakar you are driving at 80 per cent.”

Salazar added that competing on the longest round of the WRC since the Safari Rally in 2002 completed his motorsport ambitions.

“In Formula 1 we had what was called the magic square and I finished Le Mans, Indy, Dakar and now I need to finish this one,” he said. “I guess it doesn’t help that I chose to make my debut in the World Rally Championship on such a tough event, but I’m happy. My times are coming down on the second loop of the stages and it’s great to drive these cars.”

The FIA has confirmed that the turbo on Mikko Hirvonen’s Citroen DS3 WRC was illegal during the Rally of Portugal earlier this month.

The Finn had already been excluded from the event – losing what would have been his maiden win for Citroen and handing the victory to Ford privateer Mads Ostberg – for an infringement on the car’s clutch, but the post-event scrutineers also found fault with the dimensions of the turbine wheel in the turbo.

The unit from Hirvonen’s car was sent away for further investigation and the FIA ruled on Saturday that the part was illegal and the rally winner would have been excluded for that issue regardless of the clutch infringement.

The stewards’ decision from the Faro-based event stated: “The stewards decide to confirm the penalty of exclusion of car number two from the results of the Rally of Portugal, including all stage times for technical non-compliance.”

The secondary test of the turbo unit had been taken to clarify the original decision and to ensure that the testing equipment was correct. The dimensions of the turbine wheel were again found to outside of those permitted.

The stewards’ statement added: “A competing car is required to comply with the homologation papers and in this case there were two aspects being the clutch plate and the turbine wheel in which it failed to meet this requirement.”

Citroen confirmed it would not be appealing the decision. The FIA will not be taking any further action against the team.

Ford driver Dani Sordo has admitted he is still struggling for confidence aboard the Fiesta RS WRC and has ceased his pursuit of the Citroens ahead.

Like his rivals, Sordo was forced to run a compromised set-up with tyres this morning, taking hard and soft compounds in a crossed formation: hard on the left-front and right-rear and soft on the right-front and left-rear of the Fiesta.

“I can’t find the confidence and the balance in the car,” said the Spaniard. “But this is not the car – the car feels nice to drive.

“Of course, I want to make some small changes and to push harder, but I have to make it to the finish. After Petter had his problem yesterday, there was more pressure for me to make it to the finish. “

Sordo added that a more significant part of his problem was his pace notes for the event.

“I don’t have the confidence in the notes,” he said. “Some of them I made for the first time this year and some of them are from before, but this is the biggest reason why I don’t have the confidence – it’s more the notes than the car.

“The priority is for the finish, we were close with Citroen yesterday, but now it’s not possible to fight with them.”

Citroen driver Mikko Hirvonen said he understood the team’s decision not to allow him to challenge Sebastien Loeb for victory on Rally Argentina – despite the pair being split by just 2.1 seconds.

There remains 136 miles of competition on the fifth round of the World Rally Championship, but Loeb and Hirvonen will remain first and second, with Ford’s Dani Sordo an increasingly distant third.

Hirvonen said: “You understand the team wants to be sensible and I understand it. I am disappointed, because I need the top points to stay in the drivers’ championship after what happened in Portugal.”

Hirvonen lost his first victory for Citroen on Rally of Portugal – a result which would have given him the lead in the drivers’ title race – after his car was excluded for a problem with the clutch.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton has confirmed he has told drivers Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen to hold station until the finish of Rally Argentina on Sunday afternoon.

Providing he doesn’t encounter any mechanical issues, Loeb will therefore score his 70th WRC career win in Villa Carlos Paz tomorrow afternoon.

The rally leader, Hirvonen and Matton discussed the decision after the morning’s loop of stages. Hirvonen is 2.1 seconds behind his team-mate, but Ford’s Dani Sordo is 1m30s behind.

Matton said: “I fixed the position. I spoke to the drivers and they both told me they were driving at a high tempo this morning and we are not in a position where we can take the risk in the manufacturers’ championship. I asked them to stay like they are and take the tempo from Dani.

“I was very surprised this morning when we were making so big a gap from Dani and I made the decision because of that and because they were fighting this morning. Both of the drivers understand what is happening, there is no problem from Mikko.

“The decision was more difficult after Portugal where Mikko took the win and after was excluded – but this is more in the human side. Both drivers know the objective is the manufacturers’ championship and it would have been unacceptable if something had happened before the end.”

The drivers fighting for victory on Rally Argentina will have to switch to unsuitable hard compound tyres for Saturday afternoon after exhausting the limited supply of soft Michelins in the morning.

Following shocking scenes on this event last season, when tyres were shredded by asphalt sections of the stages, the FIA permitted the use of 10 emergency tyres which would be used in more extreme weather conditions. The wet weather in Argentina pressed those covers into action, but the crews have now run out.

Drivers left Villa Carlo Paz this morning with a mix of hard and soft tyres, with rally leader Sebastien Loeb running one compound on one side of his Citroen and one compound on the other.

So bad was the issue that some of the leaders were taking two spare hard tyres to use on the road section and then changing them to the softs before the morning’s first stage.

Ford tyre engineer George Black said: “It’s been a case of mixing the best of the soft tyres we’ve had for Dani [Sordo] and Mads [Ostberg] this morning, but all the softs are just about scrap now. We’re on hards for this afternoon.”

While showers are still possible this afternoon, Sunday’s stages – including the morning’s 41-mile opener – will all be run on hard tyres.

DMACK, Michelin’s only competitor in the World Rally Championship, nominated its soft tyre for this event and, therefore has a big stock left for its top-class representative Martin Prokop. The Czech Ford driver is running sixth, but will move into fifth following the demise of Nasser Al-Attiyah, who hit a rock and damaged his Citroen’s suspension on SS9.

Sebastien Loeb continues to lead Rally Argentina after the first day two loop, but his Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen is not letting him get away.

When Loeb charged from fourth to first in short order on Friday afternoon, it looked like he was set to pull clear and stretch his unbeaten Argentina run. Hirvonen had other ideas, and although Loeb was 3.8 seconds quicker on Saturday’s first stage, fastest times on the next two meant the gap came back down to 2.1s.

Loeb admitted that he lost confidence after a wild moment on the 39-kilometre Intiyaco-Golpe de Agua stage, while Hirvonen was buzzing at the finish, having thoroughly enjoyed the stages.

Dani Sordo had to concede defeat to the Citroens, realising he could not keep pace with them and falling back in an increasingly distant third in his works Ford. Adapta Ford driver Mads Ostberg is still fourth.

Nasser Al-Attiyah took a wheel off his Qatar Citroen on SS9, so looks set to lose his fifth place despite limping to the stage finish. That will elevate Martin Prokop (Czech Ford) and Volkswagen’s Skoda duo Andreas Mikkelsen and Sebastien Ogier.

Of the drivers rejoining under Rally 2, Thierry Neuville (Citroen Junior) and Petter Solberg (Ford) are looking good for points in 10th and 11th.

Leading positions after SS9:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen         3h06m42.3s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen             + 2.1s

 3.  Dani Sordo         Ford             + 1m30.7s

 4.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford      + 2m26.6s

 5.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Qatar Citroen    + 7m58.1s

 6.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford       + 8m07.5s

 7.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda         + 8m36.8s

 8.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda         + 8m48.7s

 9.  Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini   + 11m23.5s

10.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior  + 11m36.9s

Ford driver Petter Solberg has admitted he was lucky to escape a big crash when he went off the road in sixth gear on the fifth stage of Rally Argentina today.

Solberg was forced to retire from the lead of a World Rally Championship round for the second time in succession after hitting a rock on the fourth stage of the event.

He continued to drive after the impact, but went off the road over a crest six miles later in the stage.

The Norwegian said: “This is very disappointing, but I was driving in the ruts, in the right place on the road and the rock was in the rut. What could I do?

“I couldn’t avoid it, nothing. The steering was bent, but we carried on and I pushed hard not to lose time.

“We were flat out when we went over the crest. The car landed, but the steering arm broke on the landing and we went off. It was very lucky not to be bigger when you have sixth gear and off the road.”

Solberg and co-driver Chris Patterson fixed the damaged steering arm and got back in the car to continue – only to discover the impact with the rock had damaged the steering as well. They were then told to park the car and retire from the day.

Ford team director Malcolm Wilson said: “We’ve just thrown it away again. It’s very frustrating.”

Solberg will return to the event tomorrow.

Sebastien Loeb will lead Rally Argentina into Saturday’s stages by just 0.1 seconds over his Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen.

Although Loeb had rapidly surged back from fourth to first on the afternoon loop, he was a second slower than his Finnish stablemate on the Cosquin/Villa Allende stage that closed leg one, bringing the gap between them down to just a tenth. Loeb admitted at the end of the stage that he had lost confidence in the final miles.

The Citroen duo are now comfortably clear of Ford’s Dani Sordo, who lost 20s to them on SS6 – both because his choice of hard tyres proved less competitive than the Citroens’ softs, and because he was ill at ease tackling the stage in the dark. Delays caused by the fuel tanker issue in the morning meant SS6 ran an hour later than originally scheduled.

Adapta Ford’s Mads Ostberg is still 45s behind Sordo in fourth, and several minutes ahead of the rest of the depleted field.

Leading positions after SS6:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen         2h20m30.6s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen             + 0.1s

 3.  Dani Sordo         Ford               + 33.1s

 4.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford      + 1m18.4s

 5.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Qatar Citroen    + 5m16.9s

 6.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford       + 6m24.2s

 7.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda         + 6m36.0s

 8.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda         + 6m58.8s

 9.  Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini    + 8m14.5s

10.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior  + 10m13.2s

Dani Sordo has criticised the organisers’ decision to run the final day one stage of Rally Argentina in the dark.

Sordo, who is holding third place just 13 seconds off the lead on his debut with the Ford team, felt the Cosquin/Villa Allende stage should have been cancelled.

“It’s not nice to have to go and do this stage in the night time,” said the Spaniard. “Maybe they should have cancelled [the stage], but you know this is not my problem that we have the problem this morning while we are waiting for the fuel to get through.”

The event is running one hour later than planned after the truck carrying the petrol to the refuelling point after SS2 hit mechanical trouble ahead of the first stage of the morning.

“We didn’t make notes for this stage in the dark,” said Sordo, “and this is going to make it difficult on the crests and things like that. When we have a route with more than 500 kilometres, it wouldn’t be so bad to lose 17km.”

Citroen’s Mikko Hirvonen, who is currently second, said he had no qualms about running SS6 after dark.

“It wasn’t great sitting around waiting for an hour on the startline this morning, but I’m not bothered about the dark tonight,” he said. “We’ve got lights, we’ve got notes – let’s go.”

Sebastien Loeb claimed the lead of Rally Argentina by winning stage five – despite leaving service just two stages earlier over half a minute away from first place.

Three spins on Friday morning’s two stages had left Loeb down in fourth place, behind Petter Solberg, Mikko Hirvonen and Dani Sordo.

One key factor in Loeb’s surge was a disaster for Solberg, who broke a steering arm on his Ford near the end of stage four, while holding a 20-second lead.

But Loeb also raised his pace considerably, as set-up changes on his Citroen at service allowed him to take two comfortable stage wins. The world champion moved in front of Sordo’s Ford on SS4, then outpaced team-mate Hirvonen by 13.4s on the long Ascochinga-Agua de Oro stage to take the rally lead by 1.1s. Admitting he lacked the right rhythm in his driving on SS5, Hirvonen found himself pushed back to second after just one stage in the lead. Sordo remains in touch, 13.4s behind Loeb.

Citroen Junior’s Thierry Neuville had been running a strong fourth, only to suffer yet another opening day incident. The Belgian rolled on SS5, with reports from the stage suggesting his car had sustained substantial damage, forcing him to stop and retire.

Neuville’s exit moved Mads Ostberg into fourth, despite the Norwegian having some concerns about his Adapta Ford’s engine, which he suspected could be rectified with attention to the fuel pump, and intercom worries.

After two loops of long stages, the rally resumes later on Friday evening for a single shorter stage – the 19 kilometres of Cosquin/Villa Allende.

Leading positions after SS5:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car         Time/Gap

 1.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen        2h06m52.9s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen            + 1.1s

 3.  Dani Sordo         Ford              + 13.1s

 4.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford       + 56.3s

 5.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Qatar Citroen   + 4m55.6s

 6.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda        + 5m43.9s

 7.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford      + 5m44.2s

 8.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda        + 6m03.4s

 9.  Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini   + 7m18.2s

10.  Petter Solberg     Ford            + 9m25.2s

Petter Solberg has lost the lead of Rally Argentina after hitting trouble on the first stage of Friday’s second loop.

The Ford driver broke a steering arm on the second run through the La Pampa test.

Solberg had been leading by 20 seconds going into the stage, having been at the head of the field since Thursday night’s superspecial. The Norwegian attempted to change the steering arm at the roadside, but went over the time limit and retired from the leg.

The drama moved Mikko Hirvonen’s Citroen into the lead, ahead of team-mate Sebastien Loeb, who was delayed by three spins on Friday morning, but moved past Ford’s Dani Sordo on SS4.

Rally Argentina organisers have confirmed that the full distance of leg one will be run despite the delays incurred on Friday morning – meaning the final stage of the day will take place in the dark.

The fifth round of the World Rally Championship was delayed when the truck taking petrol to the refuel after stage two suffered mechanical problems. The first car on the road this morning – Sebastien Loeb’s Citroen – was scheduled to start the La Pampa test at 0728 local time, but the #1 Citroen did not get a green light until 0830.

A spokesman from the organisers said: “We had to replace the truck which was taking the fuel and this took some time, it was a problem of the [fuel] supplier. The rally is running one hour and two minutes late now and will continue to do so throughout this afternoon. This does mean the crews will start the final stage today in the night time.”

Loeb had been scheduled to start Friday morning’s opener before dawn, but the delay meant he ran SS2 in daylight.

The crews have planned one more stage in the dark – Saturday night’s repeat of the superspecial stage on the outskirts of Villa Carlos Paz.

Ford motorsport chief Gerard Quinn said Dani Sordo was delivering exactly what the team had hoped for as the Spaniard completed his first morning in a Fiesta RS WRC in third place on Rally Argentina, 10 seconds ahead of eight-time world champion Sebastien Loeb.

Sordo has joined Ford in a one-off agreement for the Villa Carlos Paz-based event following Jari-Matti Latvala’s skiing injury, and impressed from the outset by setting third quickest – and fastest Ford – time on Thursday’s qualifying stage.

“I’m very impressed with his attitude,” said Quinn. “But I don’t think this is anything we wouldn’t have expected from a driver of his standing in the championship.

“He’s come here after a day in the car and done very well on the stages. I’m confident that the speed and maturity he is showing will return us some good manufacturer points.

“The way he has adapted to the team and the car has been really good. He’s just got his head down and got the job done.

“The one thing you notice when these guys come in is that they have the respect of the team – the engineers know what they’re all about and there’s a mutual respect between them immediately. That’s really important for the team and the way this event is working for Dani and for us.”

Petter Solberg currently leads the rally in the sister Ford.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton does not expect Sebastien Loeb to continue suffering the handling difficulties he endured on the opening loop of Rally Argentina stages on Friday morning.

Loeb spun his DS3 WRC three times on the morning’s two tests and arrived back in Villa Carlos Paz in fourth place, 34.8 seconds off leader Petter Solberg.

“This morning was not normal for Sebastien,” said Matton. “We are really not used to seeing this kind of thing from him – but at least it shows that he is human…”

Loeb had tested a new set-up for the Citroen ahead of the event and elected to run with it on the opening loop. The car developed more oversteer at the exit of corners, which was what caused Loeb’s spins and subsequent time loss in South America.

“Sebastien took the set-up because it worked in the test,” said Matton, “but this afternoon we will come back to the normal Sebastien Loeb set-up. This set-up was a little bit different from normally how he would run it.

“The changes we have made are in the dampers and in the differential. As well as this, the roads have more camber than we expected, so maybe this made the set-up more difficult for the morning.”

Petter Solberg continues to lead the delayed Rally Argentina after the first two full-length stages, helped by three spins for Sebastien Loeb.

Ford driver Solberg had gained an early advantage by winning Thursday night’s superspecial, on which the Citroens’ choice of hard tyres backfired, leaving Loeb already 10 seconds behind going into Friday morning.

When the opening La Pampa stage finally got underway after a one-hour delay due to problems with the refuelling truck, Loeb started regaining ground with the fastest time, 1.9s up on Solberg.

That stage win was achieved despite a quick spin, but on the following 51.88-kilometre Ascochinga/Agua de Oro stage, a further two spins proved more costly for Loeb, who lost 26.5s to the leader and fell to fourth place.

Solberg therefore holds a 20s cushion over the other Citroen of Mikko Hirvonen, who moved ahead of Ford stand-in Dani Sordo on SS3.

Thierry Neuville (Citroen Junior) and Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford) run fifth and sixth, while behind them the demanding rally is already taking its toll.

M-Sport Ford duo Evgeny Novikov and Ott Tanak sustained a damaged wheel and a puncture respectively on stage two, then both stopped and retired on the next stage, while a spin for Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar Citroen) and a puncture for Martin Prokop (Czech Ford) delayed them as well.

Leading positions after SS3:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Petter Solberg     Ford            1h06m00.0s

 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen            + 20.1s

 3.  Dani Sordo         Ford               + 24.6s

 4.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen            + 34.8s

 5.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior     + 38.0s

 6.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford        + 51.1s

 7.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda         + 2m55.2s

 8.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda         + 2m55.5s

 9.  Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini    + 3m04.0s

10.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Qatar Citroen    + 3m59.4s

The start of the first full day of Rally Argentina has been delayed due to a vehicle stuck on the opening La Pampa stage.

AUTOSPORT understands that a fuel tanker heading for the refuelling point has come to a halt on the course and will need to be removed before the stage can commence. Reports from the service park suggest that it could take up to an hour before the stage start will take place.

The delay is a boost for Sebastien Loeb. Running first on the road on Friday, the world champion had been concerned that he would be at a disadvantage on La Pampa as he would be covering the opening part of the stage in darkness, whereas dawn would have broken fully by the time drivers further back took to the stage. Now the full field will run in daylight.

After Thursday’s rain, conditions for the first day of full-length stages are currently dry.

Petter Solberg took the early Rally Argentina lead as Ford dominated the Thursday evening superspecial that kicked off the event.

On a cold and wet evening, Citroen’s choice of hard tyres proved to be a significant disadvantage, with works drivers Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen ending the 6.04-kilometre stage back in eighth and 11th places respectively, both over 10 seconds off the lead.

Ford went for soft tyres and swept the top five positions, with factory driver Solberg leading his temporary team-mate Dani Sordo – substituting for the injured Jari-Matti Latvala – by 3.6s.

Portugal winner Mads Ostberg (Adapta) completed the top three, ahead of M-Sport duo Ott Tanak and Evgeny Novikov.

Citroen’s lead runner is currently its Junior team driver Thierry Neuville in sixth place, while Volkswagen has both its S2000 Skoda Fabias inside the top 10 – as Sebastien Ogier holds seventh and Andreas Mikkelsen sits 10th, behind Armindo Araujo’s Team Portugal Mini.

Nasser Al-Attiyah had a spin on the stage and is back in 13th in the Qatar Citroen.

The full-length stages commence on Friday morning.

Leading positions after SS1:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car        Time/Gap

 1.  Petter Solberg     Ford             4m54.9s

 2.  Dani Sordo         Ford              + 3.6s

 3.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford       + 4.8s

 4.  Ott Tanak          M-Sport Ford      + 5.2s

 5.  Evgeny Novikov     M-Sport Ford      + 5.2s

 6.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior    + 5.6s

 7.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda          + 8.0s

 8.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen          + 10.2s

 9.  Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini    + 11.7s

10.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda         + 12.7s

The World Rally Championship’s leading drivers are bracing themselves for what they expect to be one of the toughest events in the series’ history when Rally Argentina starts this afternoon.

The last round of the series in Portugal provided one of the most unpredictable rallies ever, with many of the frontrunners going off the road – this week’s Villa Carlos Paz-based event is expected to deliver more of the same.

Ford’s team director Malcolm Wilson said: “Look at the weather that’s coming in, we’ve got rain and fog and everything – there’s no doubt this is going to be a very, very hard rally and certainly the hardest since the last Safari.”

Sebastien Loeb – winner of the last six Rally Argentinas – agreed with Wilson, pointing out that the fog was his biggest concern.

“When you have the visibility down to 20 metres, there’s nothing you can do,” said Loeb, “and this is possible on this event. During the recce we had fog. We were quite lucky, the fog came down on the Condor stage for us, but this is a stage which we know quite well.

“When we were doing the recce for the new stage, we also had some fog, but then it cleared when we were on our second run through the stage, so it wasn’t so bad. This rally will have everything when it starts, we will have fog, the dark, muddy roads and narrow stages – it’s going to be very tough.”

Rain is predicted throughout the event and the hills around Villa Carlos Paz are shrouded in fog this afternoon.

Sebastien Loeb has gambled on wet weather for the opening day of Rally Argentina – electing to run at the head of the field after his fastest time on the qualifying stage.

The eight-time world champion had no hesitation in deciding to run first – despite that decision forcing him to start tomorrow morning’s first stage in darkness. Loeb’s main rivals in the rally followed his lead and elected to run right behind the Frenchman.

“I hope this is the best place on the road,” said Loeb. “On rallies when it rains it can be muddy further back and if we were going to start 15th on the road [on this event] then we could lose a lot of time in the mud. Sometimes, when the rain comes, the first place is the best one.

“OK, we start the stage tomorrow when it is still the night time, but with our rivals choosing second, third and fourth then I think it will be the same for them.”

The only deviation from the qualifying stage times at the front of the field is the reversal of factory Fords, with Petter Solberg running ahead of Dani Sordo.

Running order:

 1. Sebastien Loeb

 2. Mikko Hirvonen

 3. Petter Solberg

 4. Dani Sordo

 5. Thierry Neuville

 6. Mads Ostberg

 7. Ott Tanak

 8. Evgeny Novikov

 9. Nasser Al-Attiyah

10. Martin Prokop

11. Armindo Araujo

12. Daniel Oliverira

13. Paulo Nobre

14. Eliseo Salazar

Rally of Portugal winner Mads Ostberg says he was boosted by his maiden World Rally Championship win.

Ostberg picked up his maiden WRC win on the last round when Mikko Hirvonen’s Citroen DS3 WRC was excluded for contravening regulations regarding the car’s clutch.

“I’ve said it before and I say it again: winning my first [world championship] rally in this way is not the way I wanted to do it,” said Ostberg, “but the reaction has been positive and for sure it has helped us a lot on the sponsor side.

“The sponsorship side looks a lot better now than it did before Portugal and I am happy for that.”

Ostberg is currently third in the World Rally Championship drivers’ race, having taken two podiums from his three starts in the 2012 series. The Norwegian says his priority for the extra funding will be more testing rather than an entry on Rally New Zealand, the only event outside of his programme for the rest of the year.

“I want to do more testing and prepare better for the events,” he said. “So far this year we have done two one-day tests, one of those was on the snow and one of those was on the gravel.

“So, it’s not perfect and we want to be able to do more. At the moment, if we test, we take budget from the rallies for the second half of the year, so the extra sponsorship we get will firstly go to testing and then to enter New Zealand.”

Ostberg remained in Portugal for a holiday, but was greeted by significant interest when he returned home to Norway.

“I wasn’t surprised at the interest,” he said. “I have seen it over many years with Petter, so I knew what would happen. The response was very good with the television and the rest of the media. This kind of thing is really good for the sponsors and for everybody involved in the team.”

Despite becoming only the second Norwegian ever to win a round of the world championship, Ostberg said he could still walk down the road unmolested in the nation’s capital city Oslo.

“Some people maybe come for the picture,” he said, “but in Norway the people are really quite calm ‘it’s no problem to walk down the street.”

Ford driver Dani Sordo has admitted he was amazed to get the call to drive a Fiesta RS WRC on this week’s Rally Argentina.

Sordo is standing in for the injured Jari-Matti Latvala and has made the perfect start to his Ford debut, fastest of the Fiestas on the qualifying stage.

Talking to AUTOSPORT, Sordo pointed out the risk he felt Ford World Rally Team director Malcolm Wilson had taken when he picked up the phone to the Prodrive Mini driver.

“This is a risk for Malcolm,” said Sordo. “You know, I only tested one day for the car with not many kilometres and then I come here to do a rally which is very, very difficult.

“Even for me, this was a little bit crazy, but I will not tell Malcolm no [I can't do it]. I try to do my best, but I do not want to make a mistake. I am as surprised as anybody to be standing here in these overalls – but as well, I am sorry for Jari-Matti [Latvala] it’s a bad situation for him.”

Sordo completed 120 miles during his day-long test in Greystoke last week and the Spaniard admitted it would take him more time to settle into the Fiesta RS WRC.

“It’s not long, the test,” he said, “and there are still things I want to do with the car. We made some changes at shakedown this morning, but that’s shakedown and not the test. It’s mainly in the suspension that I want to make the car better for me.”

Sordo warned against expecting too much from this week’s fifth round of the world championship.

“For the speed, I will try,” he said. “But it will be difficult to fight with Mikko [Hirvonen] and Petter [Solberg] ‘ they know these cars. I need time in the car. It’s the same with me in the Mini; you know, the Mini is part of my body now ‘ it’s easy. But now the Ford I need to think many things. In the Mini is do things without thinking, switch on the launch or something like that, but in this car I have to think to do it.”

Sebastien Loeb posted fastest time at this morning’s qualifying session for Rally Argentina, and the Citroen driver will now have first choice on where he wants to run on the road tomorrow.

Loeb’s time of 2m36.369s for the 2.85-mile stage was 0.759s faster than his nearest rival, team-mate Mikko Hirvonen.

While the French firm enjoyed one-two status from the stage, it was Spain’s Dani Sordo who stole the limelight, posting the fastest time of any of the Ford Fiesta RS WRCs.

Sordo, making his debut with the Ford team in Argentina this week, was 1.6s down on Loeb’s benchmark and almost two seconds clear of factory Ford team-mate Petter Solberg. Solberg only completed one of his two free practice runs after a problem with the power steering on his car.

Thierry Neuville (Citroen DS3 WRC) was fifth quickest on his first time at this event, while Rally of Portugal winner Mads Ostberg was sixth.

Former F1 racer Eliseo Salazar passed his first test in a World Rally Car, albeit slowest of the qualifiers in his Mini John Cooper WRC. Salazar was 24 seconds slower through the stage.

The conditions were wet for qualifying, with temperatures hovering around 10 degrees on the gravel roads just outside Villa Carlos Paz.

Petter Solberg has talked up the Ford World Rally Team’s chances of success on this week’s Rally Argentina – the Norwegian says he is convinced he can beat the Citroens in South America.

Solberg was on course for his first win since 2005 on the Rally of Portugal earlier this month, only to slip off the road in the treacherous conditions.

The 2003 world champion has put that disappointment behind him and is focused on over- turning the four-point deficit between himself and World Rally Championship leader Sebastien Loeb.

“We can take them [Citroen], I know we can,” said Solberg. “I feel the confidence in the team and the way the car is running it just unbelievable. This is a very, very fast rally car – trust me.”

Solberg admitted the loss of Jari-Matti Latvala was a blow to the team, but he is confident Dani Sordo will do a good job for the team.

“First off, we have to make the points for the manufacturers championship and I’m sure Dani will be very good for that,” said Solberg.

“But we have to be aiming higher and higher and higher, we have to believe in what we’ve got – because what we have got is very strong. We want both cars on the podium on Sunday and we want them in one and two.”

Citroen driver Mikko Hirvonen has admitted he will go flat out from the start of this week’s Rally Argentina – despite many feeling a measured approach will pay dividends on the longest World Rally Championship stage event since 1996.

Speaking to Autosport immediately after running through the 312-mile route twice on this week’s three-day recce, the Finn said he wasn’t worried about the length of the event or the challenge it posed. His only concern was thick fog in some sections, which he feels could compromise pace note taking.

“The recce went well,” Hirvonen said. “We didn’t have any problems. Obviously, it was a bit longer than the other recces, but it was good. The fog is making it difficult to judge the exact distance on the straights, which could make it difficult when we are coming flat out in the rally car.

“For me, you always have to drive to the conditions in front of you, but there is no way we’re going to start this event at anything other than flat out.

“We can’t give away any seconds by going at less than this speed. Yes, the rally is longer, but this just means we’re going to have to drive flat out for more time!”

Qualifying for the fifth round of the world championship starts on Thursday morning, following two free practice runs at the shakedown stage.

Ford’s technical director Christian Loriaux is confident early-season development of the Fiesta RS WRC will pay dividends on this week’s Rally Argentina.

The M-Sport-built Fiesta spent time in Ford’s multi-million pound climatic chamber at its engine factory in Dunton, with the special focus of ensuring the Ford remained competitive during the high-altitude Rally Mexico earlier this year.

Loriaux says the Dunton work has led to benefits beyond the Guanajuato event.

“What we learned in the chamber at Dunton,” said Loriaux, “helped us learn more and more about other things. We worked on the engine map before Mexico and while doing that we have understood more and more about the maps. That time in the chamber has really helped the engine work this year.”

Loriaux added that the biggest step forward for Ford came with the new gear ratios which were introduced at the last event in Portugal.

“We have a longer first gear and slightly shorter sixth,” said the Belgian. “First [gear] was really short, and we were just about never using it; effectively, instead of a six-speed gearbox, we only had a five-speed on the gravel.

“With the old car [the Focus RS WRC], where you had a flat power curve, it was okay, but this one is a bit more peaky, so the more gear you have the faster you are. We knew the ratios were a good step forward and that gave us good confidence.”

Loriaux added that he was also sure the team had eradicated the misfire which plagued some of the Fiestas running on the Rally of Portugal, with the issue believed to be linked the heavy rain experienced on the Faro-based event.

Loriaux said: “A lot of people had a misfire and we think we have tracked it down, but I’m not going to count my chickens before they hatched and tell you how confident I am. The problem was probably water-related – it is a concern with the number of watersplashes in Argentina, but we fixed it.”

Injured Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala has revealed how he did have a chance to compete on next week’s Rally Argentina, but decided the risks were too great.

The Ford driver, who broke his collarbone in a skiing accident last week, spoke to surgeons in Helsinki after being operated upon and was told it was possible for him to get back behind the wheel of the Ford Fiesta RS WRC in South America.

“When I was in the hospital, I have really tried to say to the doctors: ‘Please, help me as much as you can.’ I really wanted to go there and compete in the rally,” said Latvala. “The doctors told me there was a possibility to go to Argentina and drive, but they told me about the risk and I decided against it.”

The problem centred on a steel plate which had been fitted to the broken collarbone just 18 hours after Latvala fell.

The Finn added: “The risk was that if the plate, which was fitted on top of the broken collarbone, moved or the screws came out then everything would have to be removed and then I would have to wait for the normal healing process which would be two or three months – which would mean I would have had to miss many more rallies than just Argentina.

“So, I decided not to take that risk. I miss the next rally, but after that I know I can do the rest of the season.”

Latvala will be replaced by Spain’s Dani Sordo, who has been released by Prodrive for the event.

Defending World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb reckons choosing a running order position for next week’s Rally Argentina will be a real conundrum for drivers, with mixed weather expected in South America.

The traditional theory is that on a gravel rally drivers would want to run further down the field, allowing those ahead to sweep the stages clear of the loose stones – but with rain forecast for Argentina, the Frenchman says he remains in the dark over where to start.

On the last WRC event in Portugal, Ford and Citroen made opposite choices – with Ford deciding to run late in the order and Citroen going early, fearing dust. Loeb expects a similarly tough decision next week.

“Choosing our starting positions for the first leg is going to be a real headache,” said Loeb. “In Portugal, we took a measured risk by opting to go first, because there were only 35 kilometres of special stages on the first day. In Argentina, there are over 200 kilometres of timed stages on the Friday!

“If it rains, we’ll need to be at the front to avoid having to wade through the mud. If it doesn’t, we’d certainly be better off starting in around 15th position.”

Loeb retired on the opening loop of stages in Portugal, rolling his Citroen DS3 WRC off the road on the third test. That early departure has made Loeb all the more determined to further an unbeaten run in Rally Argentina that goes back to 2004.

“After the disappointment of Portugal, I am determined to get back to winning ways, especially at this rally, with its unrivalled atmosphere,” he said.

Dani Sordo completed his first day of testing in a Ford Fiesta RS WRC ahead of his debut with the team on next week’s Rally Argentina.

Sordo, who replaces the injured Jari-Matti Latvala in the Ford World Rally Team, completed a full day of testing at M-Sport’s Greystoke facility in Cumbria today – not tomorrow as previously reported.

The Spaniard is expected to continue running in the car until the early evening, gaining as much experience of the Fiesta as possible ahead of the fifth round of the WRC.

Sordo said: “I am really excited about going to Argentina. When you are a rally driver all you want to do is to compete, so I am really happy that Prodrive has given me the chance to drive the Ford.”

The Spaniard will remain at M-Sport’s Cumbrian base tomorrow, working with the engineers in an effort to familiarise himself with the Fiesta ahead of his one-off Rally Argentina drive.

Prodrive chief Richard Taylor said the Banbury team had no problem with allowing Dani Sordo to switch to the Ford World Rally Team for next week’s Rally Argentina.

Sordo, who has competed in Argentina five times – finishing second the last time he competed there with Citroen in 2009 – was confirmed as Petter Solberg’s team-mate in the Ford World Rally Team this morning.

The Spaniard was not scheduled to contest the South American event with his current Prodrive WRC Team – but he will now come off the bench to deputise for injured Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala. The Finn broke his collarbone in a skiing accident last week.

Taylor said: “Dani is not doing all the rounds of this year’s championship with us and it is important for him to drive as many events as possible.

“As well as that, it’s good for the sport for Dani to be out there competing; it makes sense for the spectators to be seeing the best drivers. Ford has suffered some misfortune with Jari-Matti [Latvala] and we have been able to help by releasing Dani to drive in Argentina.”

Sordo will be co-driven by Carlos del Barrio, meaning Marc Marti will step in and co-driver for Eliseo Salazar who drives a private Prodrive-run Mini WRC on the event.

Ford World Rally Team has finally confirmed Dani Sordo and Carlos del Barrio will join the team for next week’s Rally Argentina, following regular driver Jari-Matti Latvala’s skiing accident.

Ford team director Malcolm Wilson confirmed the deal with the Spaniard was for the South American event only, with Latvala expected to be back in the Fiesta RS WRC in time for the Acropolis Rally later next month.

“We’re naturally disappointed that Jari-Matti will miss the rally, but ensuring a full recovery as quickly as possible is the most important thing for him and the team,” said Wilson.

“We’re fortunate to have a driver of Dani’s calibre to join us,” Wilson continued. “His experience at Rally Argentina was a key factor in the decision, having started the rally five times and finishing second in 2009.

“The agreement is for one rally only, and I would like to thank the management of Dani’s current team, who were extremely gracious in helping us in such challenging circumstances.”

Dani Sordo will test a Ford Fiesta RS WRC for the first time tomorrow.

Sordo has been drafted into the Ford World Rally Team to deputise for the injured Jari-Matti Latvala, who has been forced out of next week’s Rally Argentina after a skiing accident.

There has still not been any official confirmation from Ford that Sordo will drive, but the Spaniard and his co-driver Carlos del Barrio are already in Cumbria at the M-Sport headquarters of Ford World Rally Team.

Sordo, who has never driven a Ford on a round of the World Rally Championship before, will test the Fiesta for two days in M-Sport’s Greystoke forest test facility.

Regulations precluding testing outside of Europe mean he will not be permitted to test in South America, so following his final run on Thursday, the next time he drives a Fiesta in anger will be at his two free practice runs a week later on the fifth round of the WRC.

Sordo has tackled Rally Argentina five times before, finishing second on his last outing with Citroen in 2009.

Former Formula 1 racer Eliseo Salazar will face a baptism of fire when he starts next week’s Rally Argentina, according to Prodrive chief Richard Taylor, but is sure the Chilean is up to the task.

The Villa Carlos Paz-based event will be Salazar’s first World Rally Championship outing in a Prodrive-run Mini John Cooper works WRC and Taylor says the season’s longest and toughest round could suit the 57-year-old veteran’s street given his recent experience in cross-country rallying.

“There’s no doubt Rally Argentina is going to be a massively tough event,” said Taylor. “But Eliseo has done Dakar a couple of times and I think that kind of experience is really going to help him on the rally.

“The conditions in Argentina, as we’ve seen down the years, can change quite quickly and the terrain will be extremely challenging. It’s going to be a tough one, but he’s shown himself to be professional enough to cope with that.”

Taylor admitted Salazar’s professional approach had impressed everybody in the Banbury-based team.

“He came to the last [WRC] round in Portugal to see the way the team operates and to look at the car,” said Taylor. “He also did two days of testing in Portugal and, as you’d expect, he was very professional in the way he went about everything.”

Taylor declined to be drawn on what kind of result the one-time IRL IndyCar race winner might manage.

“He’ll be aiming for an event with no problems and a good finish,” said Taylor. “What sort of result is possible, we’ll have to wait and see. It’s great to have him out in a Prodrive Mini and great to work with somebody of his standing in South America.”

Ahead of the event, Salazar will be driving his Mini WRC down a dried-up river bed in the centre of Santiago for a promotional event, before he crosses the border and heads down to the province of Cordoba for the fifth round of this year’s WRC.

Dani Sordo is expected to be confirmed as Jari-Matti Latvala’s substitute in the works Ford World Rally driver line-up for Rally Argentina later on Tuesday morning.

Sources in Spain have stated that an agreement between Sordo and Ford has already been reached.

Sordo’s deal to drive a factory Fiesta RS WRC is anticipated to be for the South American event only, with regular driver Latvala expected to be fit again for the following round in Greece.

Latvala was ruled out of Rally Argentina after he broke his collarbone in a skiing accident last week.

Sordo is currently contracted to drive a Mini John Cooper Works WRC for the Prodrive WRC Team, but sources confirm he has been permitted to drive for the rival squad. Prodrive is not contesting every round this year following the end of its factory relationship with Mini.

Ford World Rally Team senior management yesterday confirmed Sordo was on a shortlist of possible replacements for the Finn, but denied any deal had been done.

Sordo was unavailable for comment, but has re-tweeted a website story confirming his deal with Ford.

Prodrive will miss the next two rounds of the World Rally Championship in Argentina and Greece before returning for three more events later in the year.

Regular driver Dani Sordo will drive one of the team’s Mini WRC’s in New Zealand, Germany and on Rally GB. Prodrive confirmed it is in discussions with other drivers about the second car for those events.

“We looked at the events we thought would be our most competitive and which gave an even spread throughout the year,” said team principal Dave Wilcock.

“After our pace on tarmac last year and Dani’s podiums and near win in France, Germany was an obvious choice. Rally GB is clearly our home event, while after the performance of the new car on the gravel of Portugal, we felt New Zealand should give us a further opportunity to demonstrate that we have the pace to win on loose surfaces.”

Prodrive, which will give Sordo a Mini of the same specification as the one he took six stage wins on Rally Portugal with, is planning on taking in further events between Rally GB and the end of the season.

Jari-Matti Latvala will miss Rally Argentina after breaking his left collarbone in a skiing accident.

The Finn was cross-country skiing in Lapland as part of his training programme on Wednesday when he suffered a fall.

Latvala has since undergone surgery, and will not be fit for the next round of the World Rally Championship in a fortnight’s time.

Ford hopes he will be able to return to the series in time for round six in Greece at the end of May.

The team has yet to nominate a replacement for Latvala in its Argentina line-up. Petter Solberg drives its second works car, while the satellite and independent Ford team driver squads include Portugal winner Mads Ostberg, long-term Ford protege Ott Tanak, and Portugal podium finisher Evgeny Novikov.

The injury is the latest in a string of blows to Latvala’s 2012 WRC title bid.

After Mikko Hirvonen left for Citroen, Latvala was promoted to number one status and expected to lead Ford’s pursuit of Sebastien Loeb in the championship. But although he won Rally Sweden, crashes in Monte Carlo, Mexico and Portugal have left him back in sixth in the standings, 38 points behind Loeb, even before the injury blow.

Citroen Racing will not appeal against Mikko Hirvonen’s exclusion from last week’s Rally of Portugal – despite initially stating it intended to.

The French firm says it was investigated the matter independently and elected not to pursue a case through the FIA’s International Court of Appeal.

Following the stewards’ decision on Sunday night, in line with the WRC’s sporting code, Citroen had a one-hour window to decide if it would appeal or not. It then had 48 hours to confirm the appeal, but has now decided against the action.

A statement from Citroen said: “As further analysis of the matter and discussions with experts did not uncover any new technical elements that might have been used to alter the harsh penalty handed out by the Stewards, Citroen decided not to pursue what would have been a long and costly procedure.”

Team principal Yves Matton said: “We had stated our intention to appeal in order to give us time to analyse the matter in more detail. As regards the clutch, our supplier has sent us a letter of apology acknowledging the existence of a batch of parts which were different from those on the homologation documentation.

“This letter confirms that it was never our intention to cheat. At the same time, this situation forces us to look again at our procedures, since these parts were not picked up during our own checks.

“On the second point identified by the scrutineers, the sole supplier of turbocompressors approved by the FIA for all manufacturers, has confirmed to us the plastic expansion of the wheel turbine.

“Additional analysis will undoubtedly confirm that this was due to wear on the part. We accept this harsh penalty but are determined to learn the lessons and ensure that we will be even better in future.

“We still lead both World Championships, but the gaps have been reduced. We now go into the upcoming rallies more determined than ever to get back to winning ways.”

Jari-Matti Latvala third mistake in four rallies in Portugal cost him another likely win and left him 38 points behind championship leader Sebastien Loeb and 34 points down on his Ford number two Petter Solberg.

Latvala spoke to AUTOSPORT about his run of accidents and how he can try and rescue his World Rally Championship season.

Q. Do you think you should still be the number one driver in the team?

Jari-Matti Latvala: We will see. OK at the moment, it doesn’t look good and Petter is in a better position than I am, but we keep going rally-by-rally. At the moment, we keep going as the positions are and then see. If, at the mid-point in the year, if it looks like I don’t have a chance then I’ll start to support Petter, like I did last year with Mikko [Hirvonen], but I think it’s still too early for that. We keep going as it is at the moment.

Q. How do you go forward from here?

JML: I need to get the relaxed feeling. On the final day in Portugal, I got the feeling for the driving again and this is all I can do. For sure, the area I need to pay attention, and my area of weakness this year, is in hitting too many rocks. I need to work on not going into the corners so much, not cutting the corners so much. But these rocks are not visible in the recce.

Q. How does that happen?

JML: The one in Mexico came with the spectator, the one in Sweden came after the other drivers had been taking the snowbank out and it exposed this rock and then here this rock was brought down by the rain.

Q. This one wasn’t on the recce either?

JML: No, we checked from the on-board [camera] during the recce. When it rained heavily the rock came down from the bank. It was like a little edge you could cut and take the line and that was where the rock was.

Q. And your pacenote for that corner was to cut?

JML: Yes it was. And when we did cut the corner, we found the rock was there.

Q. So, are you unlucky?

JML: What is bad luck and what is good luck? The thing is, I need to be able to react quicker somehow for this kind of thing, this surprising circumstance.

Q. That’s tough though, when you’ve committed the car to a corner…

JML: It is. But I have to try to be a little bit away and not go so much into the corners.

Q. Are you surprised team boss Malcolm Wilson keeps on supporting you?

JML: It’s great the support from Malcolm for sure. He was really good with that. Of course, he was very disappointed like everybody in the team – we have lost so many points from that rally. But that’s it. When it’s done, it’s done and you can’t get it back – you just need to see what you can do in the future.

Q. Do you feel stronger mentally than a couple of years ago?

JML: Yes, I do. I feel I can deal with this better. For sure it hits hard when you do a mistake, but I am stronger and we are getting ready for Argentina already.

Ford team director Malcolm Wilson has revealed that Jari-Matti Latvala was ready to give up his number one status in the squad following his third mistake from four rallies in Portugal last week.

The Finn crashed out of the lead of the Rally of Portugal on Friday. With Sebastien Loeb already out, a victory would have played Latvala right back into the fight for this year’s World Rally Championship. Latvala’s team-mate Petter Solberg also crashed, but he returned to finish third and is now closest to series leader Loeb; Solberg trails the Frenchman by four points while Latvala is 38 down on the defending champion.

Wilson declined the Finn’s offer to support Solberg and says Latvala retains his full support.

“Jari did actually offer [to step down as number one],” said Wilson. “He said he accepted that maybe the time had come [for a change of tactic]. But the way out of this is to give him as much support as I possibly can – and that’s what I intend to do. For me, he’s the only driver in a straight fight who can take the fight to Sebastien and beat him. And, for us to win championships, we have to win rallies.

“Granted, three mistakes from four rallies is not good, but again he has proved he’s the quickest guy at the moment and I’ve been in the sport long enough to know that it’s coming. There’s nothing to say he’s not going to win the next four rallies – it’s happened in the past. Remember when Colin [McRae] went a very long time without finishing a rally and then, bang, he won three rallies on the trot in 2001.”

Wilson added that the key to Ford’s season now was to remain together as a team.

“This shouldn’t have happened,” said Wilson, “but I know that Jari’s got the ability to bounce back and the most important thing is that we are a team. If we suddenly start splitting within the team then we are finished and we will not have that happen. It’s times like this that he knows he can rely on me and the team around him.”

While Wilson continues to support Latvala, he says he will reassess the team’s tactics at the mid-point of the season based on the championship position.

“The strategy doesn’t change,” he said. “If we do [get to the mid-point of the season] and the situation is the same then of course we will change.”

Rally of Portugal winner Mads Ostberg says his desire to stand on the top step of the World Rally Championship podium is stronger than ever now.

The Norwegian privateer was handed victory on the Faro-based event after Mikko Hirvonen’s Citroen DS3 WRC was excluded for clutch and turbo irregularities. Ostberg admitted he talked to Hirvonen on Sunday night and said he felt sorry for the Finn.

“To be honest,” said Ostberg. “this doesn’t feel very different from being second. This is not because of the result, more the way it happened. If I had won the rally then [on Sunday afternoon], then it would have been a huge thing, but because of the way it happened it’s not feeling the same. It’s a victory in the WRC, but it’s not the way I wanted the first one to come – it feels a bit strange, for sure.

“This definitely makes me more determined to get a proper win. I am still chasing my first proper one and that will be something special when I am on the top of the podium for the first time – I was on the second step this time and I want to be on the top. We will fight for that.”

Ostberg admitted the publicity at home in Norway had been considerable, but despite the exposure from being the first genuine private driver to win a round of the World Rally Championship since Franco Cunico on the 1993 Sanremo Rally, Ostberg said the rest of his season was far from secure.

“Being the first [WRC] winner from Norway in seven years is very good and I hope it will help in finding sponsors and partners, but we still have work to do,” he said.

“When we worked for the budget before this season, we worked on the same budget as last year – but now the FIA are changing a lot of the rallies. Argentina will take 20 per cent of our budget and that makes it very difficult for the rest of the season. The way things are developing means we need to find more money now. It’s the way it is – I don’t like it, but apparently somebody wants it that way.”

Talking about his call to Hirvonen, Ostberg said: “I feel very sorry for Mikko. I rang him in the evening and we talked about it. He feels he has done his job and I just feel sorry for him.

“Mikko is a very nice guy, he congratulated me on the victory. He told me it was just the way it is and said: ‘It’s your win now and you deserve it.’ He’s a nice guy and it definitely helped me to talk to him that way, he is making it a lot easier for me now.

“It’s how it is: the Citroen was illegal and they get the punishment now.”

Mikko Hirvonen has refused to blame the Citroen team for the loss of his first win of the 2012 World Rally Championship.

The Finn moved into the lead of the WRC with his dominant Rally of Portugal success, but the exclusion of his DS3 WRC for clutch and turbocharger irregularities mean he drops from first to fourth in the race for this year’s drivers’ championship.

Hirvonen, who led the standings for 10 hours on Sunday night, told AUTOSPORT: “I am very disappointed, obviously. You have to understand these things happen and move on. The team has done a lot for me already, so there is no anger – there’s no point to anything like that. It’s a shame.”

Following the demise of his Citroen team-mate Sebastien Loeb and his chief Ford rivals Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg on last week’s Faro-based Rally of Portugal, Hirvonen went on to dominate the event, winning by more than a minute from Ford privateer Mads Ostberg, who inherited a maiden WRC win when the Citroen was thrown out.

“We’d had a good week and nearly got some good points from there,” said Hirvonen. “Sometimes these things do happen and for us, this time, it wasn’t supposed to happen. There’s nothing we can do about this, except for be more careful in the future and just move on.”

The Finn added that the loss of his first win with Citroen made him all the more determined to take to the top step of the podium again – and stay there this time.

“For sure this makes me more determined,” he said. “I want to get out there again and really start the fight again. That’s all we can do and that’s what we’re going to do. We win as a team together and we lose together, we are a team and that’s it.”

Hirvonen now heads to the WRC next round in Argentina at the end of April trailing championship leader and team-mate Loeb by 16 points.

The full route for this year’s Rally Finland has been revealed and it retains only three stages in identical form from last season’s event.

Despite speculation that the event would return to a traditional Friday, Saturday, Sunday format, the Thursday-Saturday (August 2-4) itinerary remains, as do the stages in the Lahti region.

Instead of spending a whole day around the more southerly city, however, the competitors will only regroup there before the first three stages on Thursday afternoon.

The qualifying stage for Rally Finland runs through Ruuhimaki on Wednesday August 1 at 19.30. The event then starts from Jyvaskyla at 13.30 the following day, with three stages around Lahti and a return to Jyvaksyla at 22.35.

The crews will be out of service at 06.30 the following morning for a three loops of stages. Saturday’s finale brings a further three loops of stages and a 21.00 finish.

The big news, as revealed by AUTOSPORT in February, is the return of the Ouninpohja stage, back in the timetable for the first time since 2007. Mokkipera and Palsankyla are return after a three-year absence, as does the superspecial at the Killeri trotting track on Friday night.

Much of the Surkee and Leustu stages haven’t been seen since 2006, while parts of Surkee haven’t been included since Juha Kankkunen collected his third and final win on the event in 1999. The organisers have also included some completely new roads on these two Saturday stages. Thursday’s Mynnila test is the only completely new one on the route.

A statement from the organisers of the event says: “Looking back one year, we boldly took our event to new horizons and new audiences. We introduced almost a third of unknown territory to our competitors.

“From these adventures we have now taken the best experiences, having listened to the teams, the media and – most importantly – our fans and have refined all this into what we think is close to perfection.”

Mads Ostberg broke into the top 50 in the Castrol EDGE Rankings for the very first time after inheriting victory in an extraordinarily difficult Rally Portugal.

It had seemed Mikko Hirvonen would capture his first win for Citroen, and with it the championship lead, as the Finn came to dominate following mishaps for the usual frontrunners.

He was excluded following post-event scrutineering however – the non-conformity of his car’s clutch the main culprit – handing Ostberg a maiden World Rally Championship win.

The Norwegian rose 27 places to 46th as a result, easily his highest ever Rankings.

Hirvonen’s exclusion – the magnitude of which was amplified by woes for his title rivals Sebastien Loeb, Jari-Matti Latavala and Petter Solberg – also cost him ground in the Rankings, the Finn sliding four spots to 15th.

He remains the second in the WRC Rankings by virtue of the fact Latvala also slipped up.

The Finn had assumed the lead of the rally when Loeb rolled and damaged his roll cage on SS2, meaning he was unable to finish the rally.

Latvala’s event came unstuck just three stages later as he clipped a rock and crashed out of the lead in extremely treacherous conditions.

The cost of that mishap was apparent in the championship, where he trails Loeb by 38 points, and in the Rankings, where he slipped five spots to 22nd.

With Latvala falling, his Ford team-mate Solberg moved into the lead but he too came unstuck, sliding off and getting stuck in a ditch two kilometres from the finish of SS6.

Both Solberg and Latvala were able to resume under Rally 2, but while the latter could only finish 14th, Solberg managed to fight his way back to fourth – which became third with Hirvonen’s exclusion.

As a result he was able to gain ground in the Rankings, rising 19 spots to 34th. He now trails Loeb by just four points.

The Frenchman lost significant points in the Rankings, but was able to hold onto seventh thanks largely to the gap he had already established over Carl Edwards and Scott Dixon.

Evgeny Novikov, who collected his maiden WRC podium even before Hirvonen’s exclusion, rose a massive 77 places to 132nd, the first time he has broken into the top 200.

To see the full Rankings, visit www.castroledgerankings.com.

Citroen says it will appeal against the decision to strip Mikko Hirvonen of Rally of Portugal victory due to technical irregularities.

The stewards judged that Hirvonen’s Citroen DS3 was running with a non-homologated clutch and an oversized turbo component.

But the team’s technical chief Xavier Mestelan-Pinon insisted that the parts offered no performance advantage.

“The scrutineers identified differences in between the homologation sheet and two components: the clutch and the turbocharger,” he said. “The Citroen DS3 WRC’s clutch mechanisms are homologated with lightening holes. Our supplier recently provided us with a batch of parts that were not perforated and one of them was fitted to the #2 DS3 WRC.

“These parts don’t provide any gain in terms of performance, as they are heavier than those which are homologated.

“Regarding the turbocharger, which is a standard part on all World Rally Cars, the wheel turbine dimension exceed the maximum authorised. This difference comes from dilatation, as the wheel is subject to extreme temperature and rpm factors.”

Team boss Yves Matton felt the ruling was unfair.

“We had no intention whatsoever to cheat and the decision appears out of proportion,” he said. “Given the fact that the reported differences didn’t bring us any advantage, we’ve decided to appeal.”

Matton also apologised to Hirvonen and co-driver Jarmo Lehtinen for the situation.

“At the moment, most of all I feel sorry for Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen, who produced a superb performance on a particularly difficult rally,” said Matton.

“They really deserved their first win with us. All I can do, on behalf of the entire team, is offer my sincere apologies for this situation. I hope that Mikko and Jarmo will have the chance to top the podium again very soon.”

Hirvonen’s exclusion made Mads Ostberg the rally winner for Adapta Ford.

A non-homologated clutch mechanism and an apparently oversized turbo-compressor turbine wheel are the issues that led to Mikko Hirvonen’s exclusion from Rally of Portugal victory, according to the stewards’ documents that have now been released by the organisers.

The decision is based on a report carried out by FIA technical delegate Jerome Toquet, which found the clutch mechanism did not comply with homologation form A5733 and the turbocompressor turbine wheel apparently over the maximum dimension.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton, team manager Daniel Grataloup and technical director Xavier Mestelan-Pinon were all questioned by the stewards at 8.30pm local time on Sunday.

The stewards’ decision, delivered at 10.45pm, stated: “On being questioned, Mr Mestelan-Pinon explained that the clutch was a ‘joker’ part introduced as provided for in the regulations and agreed that the part removed from the car during post-event scrutineering did not match that shown on the homologation form. He also explained that the clutch removed from the car was from a different batch number to that shown on the homologation form. He stated that this was clearly a big mistake and was unsure how it happened.

“In the case of the turbo, the Citroen representative stated that the turbo unit was a standard unit provided by the specialist manufacturer Garrett who, in fact, provided the turbo units for all World Rally Cars.

“He explained that the turbine wheel was subject to extreme temperature and rpm factors which had an effect on the wheel dimensions. He added that this aspect had been the subject of discussions with the FIA technical department.

“It is noted that the homologation papers state that the dimension C is given as 54.00mm with a tolerance of plus/minus 0.1mm. Mr Mestelan-Pinon stated that the new turbine wheel when measured, was 54.02mm, which is very close to the specified dimension, including the tolerance The wheel will be measured again under laboratory conditions.”

The officials decided the clutch issue was sufficient to require a disqualification, with the turbo irregularity still an open matter.

“The clutch fitted is not in conformity and therefore car number two is excluded from the event classification,” said the stewards’ report. “The turbo appears not to be in conformity, however, the stewards suspend a decision on this matter and request the FIA technical delegate carries out further investigation.”

Hirvonen’s exclusion means Mads Ostberg has secured his maiden World Rally Championship win.

Mikko Hirvonen has been excluded from Rally of Portugal victory following post-event scrutineering – handing the win to Adapta Ford driver Mads Ostberg.

Hirvonen’s Citroen DS3 WRC was found to contravene technical regulations, with the non-conformity of the car’s clutch being cited as the reason for exclusion. There is a secondary problem for the factory Citroen team, centred on the turbine wheel in the #2 DS3′s turbocharger.

The issue with the turbine wheel is also sufficient for exclusion but this penalty has been suspended pending further investigation. The stewards’ decision is due imminently.

In addition to giving Ostberg a maiden World Rally Championship win, Hirvonen’s exclusion from the Faro-based event elevates Evgeny Novikov to second and gives Petter Solberg a podium finish, and ensures that Sebastien Loeb retains the points lead – which he had looked set to lose to his team-mate.

Mikko Hirvonen moved into the World Rally Championship lead as he claimed his first victory for the Citroen team in Portugal.

The Finn ended up dominating an extroardinarily difficult rally, on a weekend when all the other usual frontrunners made mistakes.

Hirvonen’s team-mate Sebastien Loeb had crashed out on the opening night on Thursday, and Ford duo Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg then slid out of the lead on consecutive stage amid torrential rain on Friday.

That left Hirvonen to control the rest of the weekend. His final margin of victory was 1m51.8s over Adapta Ford’s Mads Ostberg, as Russian Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford) secured his maiden WRC podium in third. Both independent Ford drivers survived final day scares – Ostberg’s car developing a misfire on Sunday morning, and Novikov driving most of the final loop with a broken throttle pedal.

Despite this issue, Novikov managed to hang on just ahead of Solberg – who surged back up the order under Rally 2 to take fourth, even though a power steering failure cost him more time on Saturday afternoon. Team-mate Latvala had a fuel pressure problem on leg three and lost 12 more minutes on top of his Friday crash delay, and had to settle for 14th place and two power stage bonus points.

Nasser Al-Attiyah recovered from a late puncture on his Qatar Citroen to win a close fight for fifth with Czech National Ford driver Martin Prokop, as both celebrated career-best WRC finishes.

Dennis Kuipers took seventh on his first appearance of 2012 in an M-Sport Ford, despite Sebastien Ogier’s best efforts to catch him in the giant-killing Volkswagen-entered S2000 Skoda.

Thierry Neuville was in the top five for Citroen Junior until his car overheated on Friday morning. The Belgian recovered to ninth – although he must get back to service on a damaged tyre to secure the result after two punctures on the final loop.

Jari Ketomaa scored a point in 10th at the end of an issue packed weekend in the Autotek Ford, taking the place on the last stage when Peter van Merksteijn Jr’s private Citroen broke a driveshaft.

None of the Minis made it into the top 10. Local hero Armindo Araujo’s weekend went awry early when he crashed on Thursday night, and Prodrive’s Patrik Sandell lost fourth place to damaged suspension on Saturday afternoon. Sandell’s team-mate Dani Sordo took a number of stage wins as he flew under Rally 2 following Thursday evening electrical issues, although a later exhaust problem and punctures limited him to 12th at the finish. Sordo did at least get three points for winning the power stage.

Leading finishers:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap

 1.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen         4h19m24.3s

 2.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford      + 1m51.8s

 3.  Evgeny Novikov     M-Sport Ford     + 3m25.0s

 4.  Petter Solberg     Ford             + 3m47.4s

 5.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Qatar Citroen    + 7m57.6s

 6.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford       + 8m01.0s

 7.  Dennis Kuipers     M-Sport Ford     + 8m39.1s

 8.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda         + 9m00.8s

 9.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior  + 10m29.7s

10.  Jari Ketomaa       Autotek Ford    + 11m44.6s

Mikko Hirvonen is edging closer to his first victory for Citroen with just one more loop of stages remaining in Portugal.

Hirvonen suggested that he had “never driven a rally so slowly” as he was on Sunday morning as he protected his comfortable lead, which now stands at 1m40s.

Second-placed Mads Ostberg had a scare when his Adapta Ford developed an engine problem and went onto three-cylinder ‘road mode’ on the long Santana de Serra stage. With Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford) driving very conservatively in third, Ostberg’s runner-up spot should not be in jeopardy provided the team can fix the issue at service.

As expected, Petter Solberg swiftly moved up to fourth on the day’s first stage, ahead of Nasser Al-Attiyah’s Qatar Citroen. The former Dakar winner remains on course for his best ever World Rally Championship result, as does sixth-placed Martin Prokop (Czech National Ford), who leads Dennis Kuipers’ M-Sport Ford and Sebastien Ogier’s Volkswagen Motorsport Skoda.

Two of the three stage wins on the loop went to Solberg’s Ford team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala. Although the Finn is relying on trouble ahead to move him up from 17th, he revelled in the Ford on soft tyres and was by far the fastest man on Sunday morning.

Citroen Junior’s Thierry Neuville also impressed – third-quickest time on Santana de Serra the highlight for the Belgian as he moved back into the points following his overheating issue on Friday.

Leading positions after SS19:

Pos  Driver                   Team/Car                  Time/Gap

 1.  Mikko Hirvonen           Citroen                 3h39m09.2s

 2.  Mads Ostberg             Adapta Ford              + 1m40.1s

 3.  Evgeny Novikov           M-Sport Ford             + 2m26.4s

 4.  Petter Solberg           Ford                     + 5m19.1s

 5.  Nasser Al-Attiyah        Qatar Citroen            + 7m15.9s

 6.  Martin Prokop            Czech Ford               + 7m54.1s

 7.  Dennis Kuipers           M-Sport Ford             + 8m14.5s

 8.  Sebastien Ogier          VW Skoda                 + 8m38.0s

 9.  Peter van Merksteijn Jr  van Merksteijn Citroen  + 10m05.0s

10.  Thierry Neuville         Citroen Junior          + 10m56.2s

Mikko Hirvonen continues to lead the Rally of Portugal at the end of day two, as Petter Solberg grabbed the headlines with his charge up the order.

It took just two stages of Saturday afternoon’s loop for Solberg (Ford) to achieve his target of jumping from ninth to fourth place – albeit assisted by Patrik Sandell crashing his Prodrive Mini out of fourth on Almodovar 2.

But having reached fourth, Solberg then hit a new problem as power steering failure left him struggling through the leg-ending Loule stage, dropping him back to fifth again, behind Nasser Al-Attiyah’s Qatar Citroen. Given Solberg’s Saturday pace, regaining the 16-second gap to Al-Attiyah on Sunday morning ought to be straightforward.

At the front, Citroen driver Hirvonen’s lead is up to 1m11s over Mads Ostberg, who slowed slightly on the final stage as he was concerned about unusual noises from his Adapta Ford, which turned out to be due to a loose sumpguard. Despite this scare, Ostberg remains half a minute clear of M-Sport Ford’s Evgeny Novikov.

While Solberg flew, his team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala’s rally got worse still as a fuel pressure problem cost him over 12 minutes on the first stage of the loop. The Finn was eventually able to resolve the problem and continue in a distant 17th place.

Dani Sordo was quickest on the only afternoon stage that Solberg did not win, but remains 12th in the Prodrive Mini following his Thursday night electrical problems.

Leading positions after SS15:

Pos  Driver                   Team/Car                  Time/Gap

 1.  Mikko Hirvonen           Citroen                 2h43m46.2s

 2.  Mads Ostberg             Adapta Ford              + 1m11.9s

 3.  Evgeny Novikov           M-Sport Ford             + 1m41.2s

 4.  Nasser Al-Attiyah        Qatar Citroen            + 6m10.1s

 5.  Petter Solberg           Ford                     + 6m26.5s

 6.  Martin Prokop            Czech Ford               + 6m47.5s

 7.  Dennis Kuipers           M-Sport Ford             + 7m29.8s

 8.  Sebastien Ogier          VW Skoda                 + 8m00.2s

 9.  Peter van Merksteijn Jr  van Merksteijn Citroen   + 8m38.7s

10.  Jari Ketomaa             Autotek Ford            + 11m36.7s

There is growing concern that a return to heavy rain for the final leg of the Rally of Portugal will leave the leading crews short of suitable tyres.

A new regulation for this year permitted a division in the allocation of tyres, with 10 of the 40 covers each driver is permitted in Portugal being of the soft rather than hard compound. The crews used two sets of wets yesterday morning and this morning, and rally leader Mikko Hirvonen admitted he was hoping the inclement weather would end.

“If it’s raining tomorrow then it’s simple – we don’t have any tyres,” he said. “This really is a pretty silly rule that we come here with the soft tyres, but not enough of them to get through the event. We should have enough of the right tyres to drive for the whole rally.”

Current second-placed driver Mads Ostberg says he will be fine through the final day.

“We have some good tyres from yesterday that are in good condition and then we have two new events to put on as well,” he said.

Independent Ford drivers Mads Ostberg and Evgeny Novikov have both admitted they will need the weather to deteriorate if they are to stand any chance of overturning Mikko Hirvonen’s Rally of Portugal lead.

The Citroen-driving Finn is 52 seconds ahead after the first stage of the afternoon, but the Fiesta RS WRC pair chasing him have not given up on upsetting Hirvonen’s plans to take his first win in a DS3 WRC on the Faro-based event.

“If the rain comes back then we can fight again,” said Ostberg, “because it means that we can take some more risks and gamble a little bit more. But, when the weather is more dry like it was this morning, then the times are quite close together and it’s much harder to make any kind of impression.”

Short heavy showers are forecast for this afternoon, with more prolonged rain expected to return for Sunday’s fourth and final leg.

Alastair Fisher has become the first Briton to win a WRC Academy rally, after he dominated the Rally of Portugal round of the series.

The WRC Academy does not contest the full length of the main WRC round, allowing the Northern Irishman the chance to celebrate his maiden series win this afternoon.

Fisher led the Academy field on this event 12 months ago, but crashed out of the lead on the final stage last year.

“It’s a fantastic feeling to be here,” said the winner, “it’s long overdue. It’s been a tough event, the conditions in the rain yesterday were really tricky, but I felt we could have gone harder. I didn’t really think we were taking big risks at all.”

Fisher, whose uncle Bertie was a four-time Irish Rally champion, finished the event 40 seconds ahead of Australian driver Brendan Reeves. Pontus Tidemand was third in the all-Fiesta R2 series.

Ford’s Petter Solberg is targeting fourth place on this week’s Rally of Portugal as he attempts to make up for crashing out of the lead in the rain on Friday.

The Norwegian slid off the road on the second stage yesterday, but has bounced back with fastest times today. The 2003 world champion is currently running in ninth place, more than two minutes down on Patrik Sandell’s fourth-placed Mini, but he is sure he can bag more points over the second half of the event.

“I think fourth is possible,” Solberg said. “We will keep on pushing, but at the same time I don’t want to take too many risks.

“Yesterday was very frustrating. The fog was so bad, I couldn’t see the end of the bonnet and I braked like normal, but the car wasn’t stopping. I braked harder and harder, but we just dropped off the edge of the road at a really slow speed.

“We’re looking forward now, though and the rest of the event is about getting some points.”

Ford team director Malcolm Wilson added: “We set fourth as the target last night and it’s achievable. We know he should be able to get there without too much risk. Compared with this time yesterday, if he was able to get there I think we would be playing a get out of jail card.”

The Ford team was helped by a stewards’ decision which ruled out an extra 15 minutes of Rally 2 penalties from the cancelled stages yesterday afternoon.

Mikko Hirvonen continues to lead the Rally of Portugal for Citroen, despite Mads Ostberg’s best efforts to catch him.

Ostberg (Adapta Ford) took second from Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford) on Saturday’s opening stage, and hoped he could then chase down the leader, but instead Hirvonen extended his cushion to 47.3 seconds.

The Finn achieved that despite very high tyre wear on his soft compound on what are now surprisingly dry stages, while Ostberg was one of several Ford drivers hampered by a misfire – perhaps due to the level of water getting into the engines in waterspalshes.

Novikov was also having misfire issues, and decided that he would only go flat-out if it rained again, as he felt his lack of experience of the stages would count against him too much in the dry. The Russian is now 22.2s behind Ostberg.

All three morning stages were won by drivers recovering ground under Rally 2 rules, with 13th-placed Dani Sordo – whose Prodrive Mini team-mate Patrik Sandell remains fourth – fastest on SS11 before Ford’s Petter Solberg set the pace on SS12 and SS13. That has brought Solberg back up to ninth place already – with the next four drivers, led by Martin Prokop’s misfiring Czech National Ford, all realistic targets for the afternoon.

Jari-Matti Latvala has not matched Ford team-mate Solberg’s pace and is 15th.

Leading positions after SS13:

Pos  Driver                   Team/Car                  Time/Gap

 1.  Mikko Hirvonen           Citroen                 2h10m38.6s

 2.  Mads Ostberg             Adapta Ford                + 47.3s

 3.  Evgeny Novikov           M-Sport Ford             + 1m09.5s

 4.  Patrik Sandell           Prodrive Mini            + 4m08.8s

 5.  Martin Prokop            Czech Ford               + 5m02.3s

 6.  Nasser Al-Attiyah        Qatar Citroen            + 5m02.5s

 7.  Dennis Kuipers           M-Sport Ford             + 6m11.5s

 8.  Peter van Merksteijn Jr  van Merksteijn Citroen   + 6m21.3s

 9.  Petter Solberg           Ford                     + 6m31.5s

10.  Jari Ketomaa             Autotek Ford             + 7m09.4s

Sebastien Loeb’s co-driver Daniel Elena has admitted he was amazed to see both factory Fords off the road during the second day of the Rally of Portugal.

Eight-time World Rally champion co-driver Elena and Loeb crashed out of the event on the first evening and then expected Ford drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg and their Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen to close the gap on their championship lead. But of the WRC’s top quartet, only Hirvonen made it to Saturday unscathed.

“It was unbelievable what happened [with Ford] yesterday. Incredible,” said Elena. “The drivers have just to drive to take points for the championships – don’t take the risk. And when Jari-Matti crashed then there is less risk, but then Petter crashed as well!”

Elena was more complimentary about Hirvonen’s performance.

“Mikko is Mikko, he knew the conditions were bad and so he said: ‘OK, if there is more bad conditions then I will take the second place, because if I don’t finish then I take nothing’. This is the way to go,” said Elena. “Yes, we saw some difficult conditions and a lot of drivers crashing, but this is bad [for Ford].”

Elena said he was not too concerned about the championship situation – despite the fact that Hirvonen would likely take over the lead of the series if he goes on to win the rally.

“For us, first of all it was, ‘f**k!’ Big crash, very bad for us. But then you look and it’s OK for the points. This is only the fourth race, it’s very early in the season.”

Rally of Portugal leader Mikko Hirvonen says he will not risk everything in his bid to win his first World Rally Championship round in a Citroen this weekend.

The Finn, driving for the French team for only the fourth time, leads the Faro-based event by 36.3 seconds from Russian driver Evgeny Novikov, with Mads Ostberg a further five seconds behind.

After Sebastien Loeb’s departure from the event on the third stage, the full weight of Citroen’s points expectation now rests on Hirvonen’s shoulders – especially as he can now extend Citroen’s lead in the standings after both factory Fords went off the road on Friday.

“I’m not confident of anything at the moment,” said Hirvonen. “I am just going to drive through the stages and tick them off. I’m not thinking about anything except for the stages. I have to think about the risks and think about how much I am willing to risk to win this rally.

“For now, we will carry on as we are. I know that I can fight more if I need to, but Novikov and Ostberg have less to lose – but equally, the best way to make the most manufacturer points is to win the rally.”

Rally of Portugal leader Mikko Hirvonen has criticised the decision by event organisers to cancel Friday afternoon’s three stages due to the heavy rain and fog in the area.

Amid claims by officials that there is not likely to be any further cancellations in spite of more bad weather predictions for the rest of the Faro-based event, the Finn believed that the road conditions had not been unduly dangerous.

“Why did we cancel?” he said. “Sure, it would have been difficult, but I would like to have gone and done a couple more stages. It wasn’t dangerous for the drivers. It was very, very difficult, but it wasn’t dangerous.

“I understand the other side, if it’s difficult to get the ambulance or something into the stage, then I understand it. But the road was so difficult and you had to be driving so slowly all of the time that in that way for the drivers it wasn’t dangerous.”

The weather made for an exceptionally tough morning for the organisers of the Faro-based event, with the field split up when a watersplash became flooded and left half of the field stranded before stage seven.

Fuel had to be driven out to those crews in order for them to make it back to the Faro service area.

While the organisers waited for the cars at the back of the field to return, Hirvonen and the leaders were held in service for an hour before the decision was taken to cancel the rest of the day.

Rally of Portugal clerk of the course Pedro Almeida said: “I appreciate his [Hirvonen's] opinion, but if he was involved in an accident and, of course, I hope this isn’t the case, but I think he would like to have the ambulances and the doctors near to him as soon as possible. Under these conditions today, it would take very long for them to get there.

“There is a limit, I must have ambulances and doctors in the stage to get to the accident place in a maximum of 10 minutes and under these conditions that would have been impossible – this is why we cancelled the stages.”

Almeida added that he is confident the storms which have hit the event won’t force any more cancelled stages.

“We don’t estimate so many problems in tomorrow’s area,” he said. “We sent a crew to check the conditions of the roads and the stages are in a better condition and we are sure everything will be okay.

“It will be slippery on the roads tomorrow, but not so bad as today. Today the roads were down to the bedrock, because don’t forget we don’t have rain in this area for three months and then today the storm comes. The weather is expected to be the same until Sunday, when the storms will move north through the country.”

The final three Friday stages in Portugal have been called off as a result of the poor weather in the region.

Torrential rain had hit the area in the morning, leading to a dramatic first loop in which Ford team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg both crashed while leading, and many other frontrunners either went off the road or suffered technical problems related to the level of water.

Adding to the complications, cars became stuck in water on road sections between stages, trapping some of the field on the way to a refuelling point.

The second Friday loop was delayed at first, with cars held at service in Faro, as the organisers were determined to try and at least run some of the stages. But it has now been announced that SS8-SS10 will not be run at all “for safety reasons”.

Citroen driver Mikko Hirvonen takes a 36-second lead into Saturday, with private Ford men Evgeny Novikov and Mads Ostberg next up after Latvala, Solberg and Sebastien Loeb’s accidents.

The Rally of Portugal has been stopped due to the bad weather, with the leading crews being held at the service park in Faro.

The event is expected to restart in the next hour, with the delay caused by the flooding of a river crossing after the sixth stage of the event. The day’s final stage has been cancelled. Many crews at the back of the field have been re-routed away from the river and directly back to service.

An additional headache for the organisers is a refuel which was situated after the river crossing. Unable to reach the refuelling point, some of the cars would have run out of petrol before arriving back on the Algarve. In order to avoid this, a four-wheel drive vehicle has been sent into the area with fuel tanks and a hand pump to dispense fuel and keep the event running.

A spokesman for the rally said: “We will not let the leading cars go out again until we have all the cars back in from the first loop of stages.”

There had been some concern that all three of the afternoon’s stages might have been lost, but the spokesman said: “This is very unlikely. Because we have cancelled the final stage, we have enough time to get the cars out and running on the next two stages.”

The re-run Tavira and Alcarias stages are still shrouded in fog and rain. The river crossing after Alcarias and before the Sao Bras de Alportel test is still too deep to cross, which is why the final stage has been cancelled.

The spokesman added: “These conditions have been very difficult and they continue to be so, but we will have the event running again very soon.”

When the event is running, Citroen’s Mikko Hirvonen will lead the event from private Ford driver Mads Ostberg.

Jari-Matti Latvala says his Rally of Portugal crash came in some of the most difficult driving conditions he has ever experienced.

The Finn was leading the rally when he slid off the road near the end of Friday’s opening stage.

“Visibility wasn’t great,” said Latvala, speaking about the incident for the first time. “The rock was on the line. I touched the rock and the impact broke the TCA. The front-left wheel bent under the arch and the car spun backwards off the road and down a bank. There is no other damage to the car, but the police wouldn’t allow people to come and help.

“I didn’t have the rock in my notes, so I’m not sure where it came from. It was incredibly slippery and the visibility was bad. As well as the fog, all of our side windows were misted. I think it’s probably some of the most difficult conditions in which I have driven.”

Starting the event 40 points behind series leader Sebastien Loeb, Latvala could have narrowed that gap by up to 28 points if he had remained at the front.

Latvala refused to think about the incident’s implications for the title race.

“I just want to focus on the next round, I’m not thinking about the championship,” he said. “After leading last night we had a great opportunity for a good result here and I’m incredibly disappointed with what’s happened.”

Ford World Rally Team technical director Christian Loriaux says his drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg squandered a huge opportunity with their Rally of Portugal crashes.

The team had a chance to make up much of its 38-point gap to Citroen in the championship with Latvala and Solberg running one-two, until both drivers went off the road on successive stages.

Citroen’s attack, blunted by Sebastien Loeb rolling out of the event last night, is now headed by new rally leader Mikko Hirvonen.

Loriaux said: “We were given a big, big lifeline and we have cut it off. Twice. The championship was over for us really and then we are given this massive life when Seb throws his rally away and all our guys had to do was go steady. They knew they could control Mikko, they knew they could. All they had to do was stay on the road.

“OK, it’s easy to say all they had to do was stay on the road and I’m sure it was like Indonesia in the old days, but a load of our other cars managed to get through. It was just survival.

“After Jari went off, Petter had 20 seconds on Mikko, he could have backed off more. It’s just such a waste of a turnaround in the championship, we had it on a silver tray and we have put the tray in the bin and then buried the bin.”

Loriaux added that the pain was even worse after the Fords’ pace had improved with some new gear ratios for this rally.

“We knew when we came here the car was really, really quick and we knew that, in the dry, Jari could beat Seb fair and square,” said Loriaux. “We were confident, there was no way they would get away with this one.”

Thick fog, heavy rain and very muddy stages led to carnage throughout the leaderboard – headlined by Ford team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg crashing out of the lead on consecutive stages.

The duo had started the day first and second, and looking good to turn the team’s title bid around following Sebastien Loeb’s Thursday night crash.

But first Latvala slid off the road and down a bank on SS5, then Solberg – who had inherited the lead – did likewise on SS6.

That left Hirvonen up front in the remaining works Citroen. Despite losing 12 seconds to the charging Novikov (M-Sport Ford) on SS7, Hirvonen said he just wanted to stick to his own pace.

“It was very, very foggy and very, very muddy as well, and you cannot even believe how slowly we are driving – but it’s so slippy that if there’s one corner you don’t get right, it’s over. I don’t want to take any risks,” he said.

Despite some intercom problems, Novikov took second from Mads Ostberg on SS7, to the Norwegian’s surprise, although Ostberg was also suffering with a puncture. The two Fords are now five seconds apart in second and third.

Patrik Sandell has stayed out of trouble and moved up from 11th to fourth in the Prodrive Mini, with Martin Prokop (Czech Ford) and Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar Citroen) doing likewise to appear in surprise top six positions. Prokop benefited from running second on the road to go second quickest on SS5 and SS6.

Jari Ketomaa was up to fifth in the DMACK-shod Autotek Ford, but then an engine problem cost him several minutes and saw him tumble to 10th.

All three stages in the loop were won by Dani Sordo. The Prodrive Mini is running first on the road – ideal in the conditions – having retired with electrical problems last night. Despite being a full minute quicker than almost everyone else on stages five and six, Sordo is still only 13th overall due to his Rally 2 penalties.

Ott Tanak (M-Sport Ford) and Thierry Neuville (Citroen Junior) started the day fourth and fifth but were also among the victims of the conditions, which were instrumental in causing multiple cars to either slide off the road or struggle with electrical problems due to deep and unexpected watersplashes.

Leading positions after SS7:

Pos  Driver                   Team/Car                  Time/Gap
 1.  Mikko Hirvonen           Citroen                 1h20m01.7s
 2.  Evgeny Novikov           M-Sport Ford               + 36.3s
 3.  Mads Ostberg             Adapta Ford                + 41.8s
 4.  Patrik Sandell           Prodrive Mini            + 3m07.2s
 5.  Martin Prokop            Czech Ford               + 3m25.8s
 6.  Nasser Al-Attiyah        Qatar Citroen            + 3m46.9s
 7.  Peter van Merksteijn Jr  van Merksteijn Citroen   + 3m50.8s
 8.  Dennis Kuipers           M-Sport Ford             + 4m41.1s
 9.  Sebastien Ogier          VW Skoda                 + 5m45.1s
10.  Jari Ketomaa             Autotek Ford             + 5m52.3s

Petter Solberg has become the latest driver to strike trouble while leading the Rally of Portugal – crashing out and putting Mikko Hirvonen in front.

Ford driver Solberg had only led for one stage after his team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala went off the road amid extremely treacherous wet conditions in Portugal.

Solberg held a 25-second advantage over Citroen driver Hirvonen going into SS6, but slid off and got stuck in a ditch two kilometres from the finish.

Hirvonen now leads by half a minute over Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford), with Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford) third.

Ford has confirmed that Jari-Matti Latvala has retired from the second day of the Rally of Portugal.

The Finn crashed his Fiesta RS WRC off the road close to the end of the opening stage this morning. It had been hoped that the Finn might get the car back on the road, but the police in the stage are not allowing spectators to help.

A Ford spokesman said: “Jari-Matti reported that he hit a rock in a corner, which threw him off the road. The car is at 45 degrees in a ditch and it’s not going to be possible to get it back on the road. We don’t know what the damage is to the suspension, or the rest of the car.”

Latvala had been leading at the time. His team-mate Petter Solberg has taken over at the top of the leaderboard.

Jari-Matti Latvala has crashed out of the Rally of Portugal lead on the first Friday stage.

Substantial overnight rain made the opening Tavira stage incredibly treacherous, with a large number of cars stopping on the stage.

Leg one leader Latvala was one of them, putting his Ford off the road near the finish. It is not yet clear whether he will be able to rejoin, with Ford reporting that the car is undamaged, but stuck off the road with no spectators around to assist. The incident is Latvala’s third in four rallies this year.

Latvala’s exit put his Ford team-mate Petter Solberg into the lead, despite the Norwegian also having a trip off course. Solberg is 25 seconds clear of second-placed Mikko Hirvonen (Citroen), who admitted he was over-cautious in a section of the stage littered with crashed cars.

Others to stop on the stage were overnight fourth and fifth-placed men Ott Tanak (M-Sport Ford) and Thierry Neuville (Citroen Junior), Volkswagen Skoda S2000 driver Sebastien Ogier, and S2000 class leaders Hayden Paddon and Craig Breen.

Dani Sordo – running first on the road after stopping with electrical problems last night – was quickest on the stage by nearly a minute in his Prodrive Mini, with Czech Ford driver Martin Prokop a shock second.

The second day of the Rally of Portugal will start in some of the wettest conditions for the World Rally Championship in recent years, which could work to the detriment of the current leaders.

The torrential rain which arrived in the Algarve area last night has continued into this morning, with the stages north of the rally’s Faro base turning extremely muddy.

In these conditions, the best place on the road is at the front of the field, with the gravel stages worsening in condition with every car that passes.

Under new regulations, which stipulate the leaderboard is reversed at the end of the leg to leave the slowest World Rally Cars running first on the road and sweeping the loose gravel clean in dry conditions, the fastest drivers from yesterday’s four stages will be in the worst conditions.

“It will be tough,” said rally leader Latvala, “but the main thing is that the competition for us is close around us: Mikko [Hirvonen] is only two cars ahead.”

Jari-Matti Latvala says Ford must capitalise on a near-perfect start to the Rally of Portugal.

The factory Fiesta RS WRCs ended the opening day first and second, while championship leader Sebastien Loeb rolled out of the rally on SS3 on Thursday night.

Despite heavy rain in the third gravel stage of day one, Latvala and his team-mate Petter Solberg emerged at the top of the leaderboard, vindicating the British team’s selection of running order position.

Ford had opted to run at the back of the pack for last night’s competition, while the works Citroens opted to run at the front.

The first two gravel stages favoured the Fords, running in relatively dry conditions which forced Mikko Hirvonen and Sebastien Loeb to sweep the loose gravel clean. The third would probably have cleaned as well, but the Fords were hampered by torrential rain which arrived while they were in the stage.

Latvala said: “I am really happy our tactic paid off. We spent a lot of time thinking about it and it has really paid off now. I have to admit, I was a little bit worried when I saw the rain coming in the service park, but it went well for us.

“Ford has the good cards now, but we need to use them very wisely. There are still 400 kilometres to go in this rally, we have to stay clever and stay calm.”

With Loeb out of the rally, Latvala said the approach from the Frenchman’s team-mate Hirvonen would be key to how the event played out for the next three days.

“It will be interesting to see what he does,” added Latvala. “I don’t know if Citroen will let him fight. I think he will fight at the start of the second day and see what happens.”

Jari-Matti Latvala holds a narrow lead at the end of the opening evening of the Rally of Portugal, while Sebastien Loeb is already out of the event.

Championship leader Loeb was third after the first two stages, but crashed heavily on SS3 when he misunderstood a pace note – damaging his Citroen’s rollcage and forcing him to retire from the whole event.

Yesterday Ford had elected to choose lowly road positions while the Citroens decided to open the road, as the latter reckoned dust would cause visibility issues on the night stages for those running down the order, whereas Ford thought the surface would have cleaned thoroughly by the time its works cars came through if it went late in the list.

In the event, changing weather meant there was little to choose between the two strategies. Ford had better grip on the first two stages of the night, but struggled in the slippery conditions of SS4 after a heavy rain shower hit.

But ultimately it was Ford that led the event as the day closed, with Latvala 2.6 seconds ahead of team-mate Petter Solberg, and Citroen’s remaining contender Mikko Hirvonen just 5s off the top spot in third.

“I think overall it’s been a good evening. It’s not been an easy evening, but I think our positions have paid off,” said Latvala.

M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak is still within 15s of the lead in fourth, having been quick all night and beaten all the works cars to a stage win on SSS4.

Fellow rising star Thierry Neuville is next up in fifth for Citroen Junior, followed by Mads Ostberg, whose Adapta Ford was delayed by an SS3 puncture.

It has been a bad night for Mini. Prodrive’s Dani Sordo stopped with electrical problems before SS3, and local favourite Armindo Araujo spent five minutes off the road in his Motorsport Italia car on SS2, leaving only Sordo’s team-mate Patrik Sandell in contention for the marque. Sandell finished the leg in 11th.

Leading positions after SS4:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car         Time/Gap

 1.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford             25m04.6s

 2.  Petter Solberg      Ford               + 2.6s

 3.  Mikko Hirvonen      Citroen            + 5.0s

 4.  Ott Tanak           M-Sport Ford      + 15.7s

 5.  Thierry Neuville    Citroen Junior    + 34.0s

 6.  Mads Ostberg        Adapta Ford       + 53.3s

 7.  Evgeny Novikov      M-Sport Ford    + 1m02.9s

 8.  Jari Ketomaa        Autotek Ford    + 1m15.0s

 9.  Hayden Paddon       ASM Skoda       + 1m39.6s

10.  Dennis Kuipers      M-Sport Ford    + 1m47.1s

Sebastien Loeb will not restart tomorrow’s second leg of the Rally of Portugal after the rollcage on his Citroen DS3 WRC was damaged when he rolled on SS3 on Thursday night.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton confirmed Loeb’s early bath and explained the unusual circumstances of the eight-time world champion’s exit.

“They went off in a situation when the road turned on the top [of a crest], the road turned to the right and Sebastien turned to the left,” said Matton. “The pace note was good, but he didn’t follow the indication, just before the top the road was going a little bit to the left and we think he was looking more to the road and he didn’t follow the note.”

Matton added that the accident was not high speed, but the car rolled off the road.

“Sebastien said the impact was not heavy,” he said. “We don’t know how many times the car rolled, but enough to make sure it won’t start tomorrow.”

The cage in the DS3 is damaged on the roof rather than in the pillars.

“The rollcage is bent,” said Matton. “This can happen, it’s a rally. We still have one car and we’ll try to take maximum points with Mikko [Hirvonon] and try to be leading at the end of the rally.”

World Rally Championship leader Sebastien Loeb’s chances of victory in Portugal are already over after the Citroen driver went off the road on the second full-length stage.

Loeb’s car stopped seven kilometres into the Santa Clara test, with following crews reporting that he had gone a long way off but was unhurt.

Ott Tanak said: “He was warning us on the stage, but we didn’t see the car.”

Jari Ketomaa, who was next on the road added: “The car was a very long way off the road.”

Loeb had ended stage two third behind the Fords of Petter Solberg and Jari-Matti Latvala, as Citroen’s plan of running first on the road appeared to backfire.

Other early incidents included Dani Sordo losing the use of all but one headlight on his Mini on SS2 and then pulling out before SS3, and local hero Armindo Araujo dropping five minutes behind when he went off very early on the evening’s first stage.

Petter Solberg was quickest on the Lisbon superspecial that opened Rally Portugal.

The Ford driver edged out Citroen’s Sebastien Loeb by 0.1 seconds on the 3.27-kilometre asphalt course.

Their respective team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen were next up, with Ott Tanak’s M-Sport Ford completing the top five ahead of the Minis of Dani Sordo (Prodrive) and local hero Armindo Araujo (Motorsport Italia).

The rally commences in earnest with three gravel stages after dark this evening.

Leading positions after SS1:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car        Time/Gap

 1.  Petter Solberg      Ford             2m57.1s

 2.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen           + 0.1s

 3.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford              + 0.7s

 4.  Mikko Hirvonen      Citroen           + 0.7s

 5.  Ott Tanak           M-Sport Ford      + 2.8s

 6.  Dani Sordo          Prodrive Mini     + 3.8s

 7.  Armindo Araujo      Portugal Mini     + 4.3s

 8.  Thierry Neuville    Citroen Junior    + 4.4s

 9.  Nasser Al-Attiyah   Qatar Citroen     + 5.5s

10.  Dennis Kuipers      M-Sport Ford      + 6.4s

The stages on this week’s Rally of Portugal will be among the roughest of the season following a long dry winter in the Algarve area.

The drivers admitted they were surprised at what they found when they completed their recce earlier in the week and Ford team principal Malcolm Wilson said he expected to give the cars as much attention as on the Acropolis Rally.

“From what the guys have been saying about the stage, it sounds like they are rough,” said Wilson.

“It sounds like an old Acropolis and, for sure, we will be making more precautionary changes to things like suspension links and that kind of thing. We expect there will be a lot of impact damage to the cars.”

Despite the nature of the roads, Wilson said there would be no room for a measured approach.

“The drivers will have to try and stay out of trouble,” he said. “They will have to avoid the kind of things they were hitting in Mexico. I’ve just spoken to Ott [Tanak] and told him to drive sensibly and if he does that there’s going to be a good result coming. There are long stages and long days here on this rally.”

Citroen’s Mikko Hirvonen added: “The stages on Friday and Saturday will be more difficult, there has been no rain for a very long time.

“The gravel has gone now and there is only the bedrock left and on some of the stages you can easily see our lines from the previous years – there are some ruts in some of the places. For sure, this is going to be very tough on the car.”

The event, which got underway with a superspecial in Lisbon this afternoon, includes 21 more stages and 270 competitive miles.’

Citroen driver Mikko Hirvonen has revealed significant changes to the set-up of his Citroen DS3 WRC ahead of Rally of Portugal.

The Finn starts the Faro-based event chasing his first win for the French firm and, in an effort to feel more comfortable with the DS3, he was shunned Sebastien Loeb’s set-up with the car.

Hirvonen is running second to Loeb in the drivers’ championship, but he hopes his latest changes to the Citroen will be enough for him to get past the eight-time champion.

“I changed the car a lot after Mexico,” said Hirvonen. “On that rally, I was very similar with Sebastien’s set-up. After that rally, I had more mileage with the car and more idea with what I want from the car, so I changed it quite a lot ‘ we will see if it’s the right direction to go.

“I don’t want to be aggressive in my driving with the car, for sure that’s not going to work with the Citroen at all. It’s more in the suspension that I have worked. The area where this car is very, very good is the differentials, so I don’t want to touch that so much, it’s more about the suspension and trying to find traction and more precision. That’s what I want, more precision from the car.

“For sure I want to fight with him and challenge him. It would be nice to get ahead of Loeb.”

Deputy prime minister of Portugal Alexandre Relvas has guaranteed funding for his country’s round of the World Rally Championship.

Talking exclusively to AUTOSPORT, Relvas, whose government offices are located in Lisbon, said he was delighted to see the support the Rally of Portugal was receiving at the opening stage around the streets of the capital.

As well as being the deputy PM, Relvas is also the minister of sport, hence his interest in the country’s biggest motorsport event.

Relvas said: “This rally has a tradition in the world Rally Championship and the government will go on supporting the organisation of the event to have it in the world championship.

“The World Rally Championship is very important to Portugal, it is very important to have the championship here. It shows the formation of sport in Portugal around the world.”

Relvas talked with the president of the Portuguese governing body of motorsport Carlos Barbosa, met with some of the drivers and watched the stage before returning to his office.

Jost Capito will leave Ford and join Volkswagen Motorsport as the German firm continues its recruitment of senior motorsport personnel ahead of the launch of the Polo R WRC next season.

It is not know when Capito will switch, but the move has been confirmed privately by both Ford and Volkswagen.

Capito is Ford’s director of global performance vehicles and motorsport business development, based out of Derborn in America. He is expected to take a similar role in Hannover.

Capito already has widespread experience of the German automotive industry, having worked for BMW and Porsche in the past.

Capito’s move to VW is not expected to have a direct impact on Ford’s worldwide motorsport commitment, with Gerard Quinn and Jamie Allison working as motorsport directors in Europe and North America respectively.

Volkswagen’s highest profile signing for its WRC assault is seven-time WRC winner Sebastien Ogier.

The Frenchman was joined in Germany by former Citroen team manager Sven Smeets and former Peugeot and Subaru engineering guru Francois Xavier Demaison.

Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala has warned that if tonight’s three Rally of Portugal stages are hit by a dust problem, it must spell the end of night time running on most of the World Rally Championship rounds.

Latvala won yesterday’s qualifying stage and elected to run 17th on the road in order to benefit from the road-cleaning effect from the 16 cars ahead of him. The Finn is well aware, however, that if the organisers’ efforts to water the stages don’t work, he could be left to deal with the worst of the clouds of dust.

Latvala said: “If there is the dust, then it is simple to say there is no point organising the night stages on this kind of event. It has to be the same for everybody and if it’s not, then what’s the point?

“We shouldn’t forget here that it’s not only the factory drivers we are talking about, either. The private drivers are investing a lot of money to come here and compete and if the dust spoils their event then it’s bad for them.

“We can have [night stages on the] tarmac, or in Sweden and in Wales, but on the dry rallies in the Mediterranean area, if it is bad, then there is no point to organise this.”

Latvala admitted yesterday that running where he and team-mate Petter Solberg are on today’s opening loop is a bigger gamble than factory Citroen drivers Mikko Hirvonen and Sebastien Loeb, who took the opposite strategy of running at the front of the field.

The organisers have promised there will be no dust. We are counting on this. We are confident the cleaning effect is bigger than the dust problem.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton has explained Citroen’s decision to run first on the road on Rally of Portugal, stating that the fear of his drivers dropping time in the dust outweighed the potential for the road cleaning.

Mikko Hirvonen will open the road tomorrow evening, with World Rally Championship leader Sebastien Loeb directly behind him in the sister DS3 WRC.

Matton said: “We chose this place because we believe it will be the best place. We think there will be dust on the road tomorrow and if you go first on the road, this is the best way.”

Matton admitted the Portuguese organisers’ decision to water the stages does mean it’s possible the dust problem won’t be so bad, but the Belgian pointed out that inconsistent visibility could be even worse.

He added: “There are some possibilities there won’t be so much dust, but to be in a good position you have to be able to guarantee that there is no dust at all, not sometimes nothing and then sometimes some dust there.

“If you have dust sometimes then it can take the confidence from the driver; you go into a corner and there is nothing and then you come out of the corner and it is there.

“The next time the driver goes to the corner, he is always thinking: ‘Is there anything on the exit?’ This is not a good way.”

Only 17 of the 18 World Rally Cars will start the event, with Paulo Nobre withdrawing after crashing at this morning’s qualifying stage.

Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala has admitted he was surprised at Citroen’s decision to run first on the road on Thursday’s opening leg of Rally of Portugal.

Latvala and his Ford team-mate Petter Solberg will be 17th and 16th on the road respectively. The Finn admitted his decision was not an easy one.

He said: “It was difficult, we talked a lot with the team and spent a lot of time thinking about this.

“I was surprised at Citroen’s decision, I thought it might be possible that they would send one car [to the front], but I couldn’t expect that they would go first and second on the road.

“It is very exciting moment right now to think we have chosen a completely different approach. One option for us would have been to split our cars, with one at the front and one at the back, but we didn’t expect Citroen to do that.”

Latvala conceded that Ford’s stratgegy was the riskier of the two – but added that his position in the championship, 40 points behind series leader Sebastien Loeb, dictated that need to take risks.

“It is the most risky option,” said Latvala, “but on the other hand if you always play the safe card then it can give you consistency, but sometimes you have to play the risk card. If we are always playing safe then it could be hard to catch Citroen.”

Ford and Citroen have taken totally opposing decisions regarding the running order for tomorrow night’s opening loop of Rally of Portugal stages, with the factory Fiestas at the back of the pack and the DS3s at the front.

Jari-Matti Latvala was first to select his position on the road, courtesy of his fastest time on the qualifying stage this morning.

The Finn confirmed Ford’s strategy by picking 17th on the road. His team-mate Petter Solberg will start directly ahead of him in 16th.

Citroen then surprised onlookers by going in completely the other direction, electing to place Mikko Hirvonen first and Sebastien Loeb second.

Latvala said: “The organisers have told us there will be no dust in the stages tomorrow night and that’s why we have made our decision.”

The organisers of the Faro-based event will send water bowsers through the first three gravel stages of the event five hours and three hours before the first car goes onto the road.

Hirvonen said: “We have taken the safest option. If we are unlucky and the road is cleaning badly then it’s only three stages and 30 kilometres [the leaderboard is reversed for Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the slowest cars running at the front], so it would be tough on those stages, but not for the whole rally.

“But if there is dust or if there is rain then it’s better to be first on the road.”

Rally Portugal Running order:

 1. Mikko Hirvonen

 2. Sebastien Loeb

 3. Ott Tanak

 4. Dani Sordo

 5. Jari Ketomaa

 6. Thierry Neuville

 7. Armindo Araujo

 8. Martin Prokop

 9. Nasser Al-Attiyah

10. Daniel Oliveira

11. Peter van Merksteijn

12. Dennis Kuipers

13. Patrik Sandell

14. Mads Ostberg

15. Evgeny Novikov

16. Petter Solberg

17. Jari-Matti Latvala

Ford driver Petter Solberg has admitted he has reservations about the Rally of Portugal organisers’ decision to water Thursday night’s opening stages of the fourth round of the World Rally Championship.

The drivers are concerned at the level of dust which will hang in the dark, cutting visibility on the three stages, which is why the organisers elected to run a water bowser through the test dumping thousands of gallons of water.

Solberg said: “I’m not sure this is the right thing to do, there will be pluses and minuses to doing this.

“If you are first on the road straight after it’s been watered, there could be a lot of standing water and then how long is the water going to stay before the dust starts coming through?

“It’s very hard to know, it’s a tough one. Maybe the best thing would have been to put bigger gaps between the cars.”

The leading crews in the World Rally Championship usually start with two-minute gaps, but in Portugal they will run with three – with the possibility of that being increased to four if needed.