Historic day sees DMACK lead Rally Argentina
DMACK celebrated its best-ever day in the FIA World Rally Championship after Elfyn Evans and Daniel Barritt stormed their Ford Fiesta WRC through the opening day of Rally Argentina to win six stages and hold an overnight lead of 55.7 seconds.
Starting the day in second place after an opening super-special stage in Cordoba last night, the pair put in an exceptional drive as more experienced crews faltered on the rough gravel stages around the Santa Rosa de Calamuchita valley.
Maximising the superior performance of their new soft compound DMG+2 GS62 DMACK tyres, they won all four stages in the morning loop to hold a mid-day 30.1 second advantage – and lead a rally for the first time this season.
After service they immediately blitzed the pack to extend the gap by another 17 seconds and put in a relentless drive to dominate the day and hold a comfortable advantage at the top of the standings.
Tomorrow’s action moves north of host town Villa Carlos Paz with two passes over a long 80km loop of stages – including the longest of the rally Los Gigantes.
Elfyn Evans said: “We pushed hard this morning to really take advantage of our road position but I’ve also been careful and backed off where we knew it would be tricky. Everything has felt good and the whole package has worked well. We knew the soft tyre would be competitive from our experience in Mexico and I just focused on pushing as much as I could. Tomorrow’s a long, tough day but we will just maintain the pace and take it stage by stage.”
Dick Cormack, DMACK Tyres managing director, said: “Elfyn didn’t test before the event so we’re delighted to be leading our first rally of this ultra-competitive season. We took the decision to make this year’s soft compound DMG+2 tyre a little harder than last year and that’s really paid off – with stage wins in Mexico and now in Argentina as well. The stages this morning were quite soft and muddy on the recce so we certainly didn’t expect to be so far ahead after the first loop.”
