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Ford extended its record-breaking run of points finishes in the FIA World Rally Championship to 66when Marcus Grönholm and Timo Rautiainen finished 10th on Rally Argentina today. The Finnsrecovered from first-day transmission troubles while leading to climb back onto the leaderboardand claim a manufacturer point to extend the longest scoring run in the history of the FIA WorldRally Championship.
The run dates back to the opening round of the 2002 series in Monte Carlo and all 66 pointsfinishes have been achieved with a Ford Focus RS World Rally Car.
This sixth round of the 16-rally series was based in Córdoba, 700km north of Buenos Aires. Threedays of demanding gravel speed tests across the vast pampas covered 351.44km, and fog andrain yesterday posed an additional challenge to drivers. A spectacular purpose-built super specialstage in Córdoba's soccer stadium started the competition on Thursday night and brought it to aclose today, attracting more than 40,000 fans and a huge live worldwide TV audience on eachoccasion.
Today's final leg opened with two of the championship's most famous special stages. The roughand rocky Giulio Cesare and El Condor are unlike anything else encountered during the season.Narrow ribbons of road wind through a spectacular moonlike landscape, reaching 2195 metres.
Grönholm started the day in 10th, with no realistic opportunity to better his position, followingFriday's time loss. He took no chances on the rock-strewn stages, finishing Giulio Cesare thirdand El Condor in second. The 38-year-old Finn was then fastest on the penultimate stage, hisseventh fastest time and more than any other driver on the rally.
"The time loss on Friday was a shame and left us struggling for a result," he said. "Tenth gave theteam a point but it obviously wasn't what I wanted and I'm disappointed. I had hoped for more. Atleast I was able to come back and set several fastest times over the second and third legs andshow again that the car has plenty of pace. The rally wasn't hard on tyres, despite the longsections with no opportunity to fit new rubber, and our engineers and those from BFGoodrich madesome good choices. The stage in the soccer stadium was a spectacular show. As a driver, it'sgreat to perform in front of so many people in such a great atmosphere."
Team-mates Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen retired their Focus RS on the opening leg withengine problems when third. The damage was too great for them to restart under SupeRally rules.
BP-Ford team director Malcolm Wilson said: "I'm happy that we have kept our points record butdisappointed because that is all we've managed to salvage from this weekend, especially whenwe've shown that we can take the challenge to Loeb. The performance of the Focus RS was againa positive and we found a solution to Marcus' problem and ran the car faultlessly for two days. It'sa shame for Mikko that he didn't gain the experience of running a full rally after he retired onFriday."
Ford TeamRS director Jost Capito was encouraged by Grönholm's seven stage victories. "But it'sdisappointing that we led the rally and scored the most stage wins but our pace wasn't reflected inthe results. We must continue to work hard to overcome these teething problems with the newcar."
Nineteen-year-old Matthew Wilson scored his first WRC stage win when he was fastest on the final stage. Driving a privately-entered Focus RS for the Stobart VK M-Sport Ford team, Wilson and codriverMichael Orr went into the final two stadium tests 3.0sec behind team-mates Luis PerezCompanc and Jose-Maria Volta. But the Briton's pace moved him ahead into eighth, earning hisfirst WRC drivers' point. |
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