Argentina WRC: Evans stays ahead despite tyre woes

The DMACK Ford driver started the day with a stage win on Tanti, which pulled his lead margin up to over a minute for the first time, as Mads Ostberg fell behind Neuville due to a hydraulic problem.

But Evans developed a slow puncture and was only fifth fastest on the long Los Gigantes stage that followed. He then damaged another tyre by running wide on the Boca del Arroyo stage, and was only eighth quickest there.

Evans refitted the tyre with the slow puncture to get back to service, with his lead over Neuville's Hyundai now down to 44.1 seconds.

Ostberg's problem on the opener left him without a handbrake, and he also shed his Ford's diffuser in a watersplash that caused dramas for many drivers.

He was able to resolve the hydraulic glitch before the next stage and then ended the loop with second-fastest time on Boca del Arroyo, bringing him back to within 8.9s of Neuville in second and 4.1s ahead of the chasing Ott Tanak.

Sebastien Ogier struggled all morning. He had to slow down to dodge a dog, a half-spin in the watersplash cost him time on Tanti, and he then complained of severe handling problems on the subsequent stages.

By the end of the loop, Ogier was convinced something had broken on his M-Sport Ford, and he had fallen to fifth behind teammate Tanak.

After his Friday puncture, Toyota's Jari-Matti Latvala is still sixth but was able to close to within 14.1s of the troubled Ogier.

The second Toyota of Juho Hanninen got up to eighth ahead of Lorenzo Bertelli only to suffer a repeat of the power loss that cost him so much time on Friday and immediately lose the place to the Ford privateer again.

Hyundai's Dani Sordo is edging ever close to returning to the points after breaking a steering arm on leg one, and is now 2m14.3s off WRC2 leader Pontus Tidemand's 10th place.

Citroen managed to get Kris Meeke's car back in action under Rally2 following his substantial Friday accident and he was quickest of all on both SS11 and SS12.

But his teammate Craig Breen, who had a gearbox failure on Day 1, was left stranded at service as his car developed an oil leak.

Standings after SS12:

Cla	Driver/Codriver	Car	Gap
1	Elfyn Evans  Daniel Barritt	Ford Fiesta WRC '17	2h09m35.6s
2	Thierry Neuville  Nicolas Gilsoul	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	44.1s
3	Mads Ostberg   Ola Fløene	Ford Fiesta WRC '17	53.0s
4	Ott Tanak  Martin Jarveoja	Ford Fiesta WRC '17	57.1s
5	Sébastien Ogier  Julien Ingrassia	Ford Fiesta WRC '17	1m11.6s
6	Jari-Matti Latvala  Miikka Anttila	Toyota Yaris WRC	1m25.7s
7	Hayden Paddon  John Kennard	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	3m42.1s
8	Lorenzo Bertelli  Simone Scattolin	Ford Fiesta WRC '17	6m28.1s
9	Juho Hanninen  Kaj Lindstrom	Toyota Yaris WRC	6m55.2s
10	Pontus Tidemand  Jonas Andersson	Skoda Fabia R5	10m37.0s