Petter Solberg’s was well in the fight at the top and was on course for his consecutive podium place but is in tatters after his Citroen DS3 WRC suffered a mechanical failure on Saturday’s final stage in Argentina.

By D.Darrall

Petter Solberg was in 2nd place just 20 seconds off the lead. But a distraught Norwegian reached the stage finish punching the steering wheel of his car after a power steering failure resulting in dropping to 1m16.1s adrift of leader Sebastien Ogier. Solberg dropped from 2nd place down to 4th.

Ogier’s Citroen team-mate Sebastien Loeb won the stage to close to within four seconds of factory Ford pilot Mikko Hirvonen, who is second overall, 43.7s behind Ogier. Other Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala had led the rally since the morning of day 1 and set blistering pace, but suffered broken compression strut on SS13 and retired on SS14.