Rally Argentina: Neuville cuts Evans’s lead to 0.6s for final stage

Hyundai driver Neuville was second fastest to Ott Tanak on the day’s opener and took 2.5s off Evans there.

Neuville followed that up with a blistering time on the Mina Clavero stage, which he won by 8.4s over Evans to bring the gap down to six tenths of a second with just the 10-mile powerstage to go.

Evans reported at the end of the first stage El Condor that he had lacked brakes in the opening miles, and “problems” was his only comment to stage-end reporters after Mina Clavero before he drove off to the regroup.

Ott Tanak remains third, with Jari-Matti Latvala closing on a muted Sebastien Ogier as the fourth-placed world champion saved tyres in the hope of a powerstage push.

Both sixth-placed Hayden Paddon and seventh-placed Juho Hanninen are carrying problems onto the final stage, with Paddon’s Hyundai running in rear-wheel-drive only and Hanninen’s Toyota showing an oil temperature warning.

Dani Sordo’s recovery from his Friday morning steering arm breakage has now taken him to eighth, helped by Lorenzo Bertelli rolling on SS17 when on course to equal his best World Rally Championship result so far.

Mads Ostberg rejoined under Rally2 after breaking his suspension on a rock late on Saturday and quickly moved ahead of WRC2 leader Pontus Tidemand into what became ninth after Bertelli’s incident.

Citroen also got Craig Breen back out for Sunday but Kris Meeke’s second accident of the weekend did too much damage for him to rejoin.

LEADING POSITONS AFTER SS17: