Like many teams Hyundai Motorsport had to deal with their fair share of drama over the course of the five stages on day 2 of the XION Rally Argentina, round four of the FIA World Rally Championship. The team still managed to end the leg with two crews in the top seven.
Dani Sordo leads the teams efforts after Friday’s run. The Spaniard finished the day fourth despite suffering power steering issues.
“It was a difficult start for most drivers so I think we can be satisfied to finish the day in fourth place.” said Sordo, “ It was certainly very pleasing to end it with a stage win! We started out strongly this morning and I felt really good in the car.
“We were running well in the long opening stage but the power steering broke 15km from the end of the stage. I had to drive the remaining kilometres of that stage, as well as the road section and SS3 without the power steering, which was incredibly hard work, and we lost a lot of time.
“We pushed hard in the afternoon despite having to manage the tyres and that allowed us to make up some positions.”
Thierry Neuville didn’t have the same luck as the Belgian suffered a puncture on the morning loop loosing four minutes but he recovered in the afternoon to finish seventh.
“We picked up a puncture and tried to change it, which lost us several minutes.”said Neuville, “In the second morning stage, we managed to catch up with Andreas [Mikkelsen] in the stage but we got stuck in his dust. We had to push him a little to overtake but the contact was a bit stronger than anticipated.
“Everything was fine, thankfully, and we could both bring the cars to service. In the repeat stages, we found a good rhythm and could set some respectable times. It was still tough but that is the nature of this rally. We will continue to push tomorrow.”
Hayden Paddon finished the day 25th overall.
