Neuville earns Michelin’s 25th Rally Argentina win

Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul followed up their Tour de Corse victory in March with victory this weekend in Argentina to clock up Michelin’s 25th success on the South American event. Andreas Mikkelsen came second to provide Hyundai Motorsport/Michelin with its first one-two finish since 2017, while Sébastien Ogier (Citroën/Michelin) scored his 75th world class podium finish.

The weekend’s result means that Michelin has now won Rally Argentina no fewer than 25 times – with 10 different carmakers – since 1981.

The South American event has long been reputed for its varied, technically demanding stages which call for strong, versatile, high-performance tyres, but the latter’s task was made even more complex than usual this time around by poor weather. Indeed, heavy rain fell over the Villa Carlos Paz region during the week before the start to make the conditions exceptionally muddy. The organisers even took the decision to cancel SS3 for safety reasons.

Despite the adverse conditions, the medium-compound Michelin LTX Force M6 (medium) – which is capable of clearing 30 litres of water per second – successfully provided the world’s fastest rally drivers with the grip and traction performance they needed to cover the Argentine tests at average speeds in excess of 100kph!

Championship pace-setter Neuville took advantage of his running order (first on the road) to complete the opening leg in first place, ahead of Ogier, Ott Tänak (Toyota/Michelin), Kris Meeke (Toyota/Michelin) and Mikkelsen.

Tänak hit the ground running on Day 2 to close the gap to his Belgian rival but his bid was ultimately thwarted by an electrical problem on SS14. Ogier and Meeke lost time on Saturday, too, which enabled Mikkelsen to emerge in second place behind Neuville.

The Hyundai Motorsport/Michelin pair finished off the job on Sunday’s classic El Condor and Mina Clavero tests and, with the sun now shining brightly, Neuville went on to collect his 11th world class win, and his second Argentina victory in three years. Hyundai Motorsport notched up its first one-two result since Poland 2017 and Mikkelsen finished on the podium for the first time since Sweden 2018.

Third place ended up in the hands of Ogier whose mission was facilitated when Meeke was handed a 10-second penalty on Saturday evening for having failed to follow the official route on SS11. The Toyota driver managed to squeeze past the reigning champion on Sunday morning but the Frenchman responded by winning the Power Stage to clinch a footing on the podium.

Michelin Latitude Cross runners shrugged off competition from competitors on rival tyres to finish on top in WRC2 Pro (with Mads Ostberg, Citroën C3 R5), in WRC2 (Pedro Heller, Ford Fiesta R5) and in the ‘National’ rally standings (Alejandro Galanti, Toyota Etios R5).

Teams will remain in South America for the next round of the WRC which will take them to Chile in two weeks’ time.