Subaru and Toyota have become the two top teams in WRC and left Ford a little bit in the background. The dusty roads of the Argentinian winter saw the closest racing between these two teams you can possibly get in the WRC.
In the early stages of the rally the pace was set by Subaru's Carlos Sainz, Colin McRae and Toyota's Didier Auriol. Juha Kankkunen was also there but suffered from minor technical problems. Ford continued to have problems as so often before this season. Miki Biasion had to retire quite early on and Ari Vatanen who was standing in for Francois Delecour had transmission and turbo problems.
Colin McRae was the fastest starter on the second day but on SS 16 he rolled on a fast downhill wrecking the Subaru. Supposedly he had had a flat just before the accident.
Sainz and Auriol continued their spectacular duel, changing positions constantly all through the rally. Kankkunen settled for third, observing the situation over a minute behind. Vatanen got over his problems and moved to 4th. His stage times were up with the leaders but he was already six minutes behind.
Juha Kankkunen of Toyota hit electrical problems with only six stages to go and he was out. This put Vatanen on the podium which was well deserved both for Ford and for himself. He showed that he is still up where he belongs. Ari was also very happy to get a good result in Argentina where he had a very bad accident years ago which almost took his life.
Ari Vatanen
The winner in the end was Didier Auriol, Sainz a mere six seconds behind him. Sainz grasped a slight lead in the championship standings but definitely nothing is decided yet. Bruno Thiry was fourth in a privateer Ford and fifth was the winner of group N, Argentinian Jorge Recalde. 8th in the rally was by the way Isolde Holderied from Germany who is very likely to win the FIA Ladies Cup this year.
1. Didier Auriol Toyota 5:50.42 2. Carlos Sainz Subaru -0.06 3. Ari Vatanen Ford -6.40 4. Bruno Thiry Ford -11.07 5. Jorge Recalde Mitsubishi (N) -36.22 6. Jorge Bescham Peugeot -43.17 7. Rudi Stohl Audi -56.56 8. Isolde Holderied Mitsubishi -1:00.49 ...
1. Carlos Sainz Subaru 72 points 2. Didier Auriol Toyota 67 3. Juha Kankkunen Toyota 57 4. Miki Biasion Ford 30 5. Bruno Thiry Ford 22 6. Francois Delecour Ford 20 Ari Vatanen Ford 20 Ian Duncan Toyota 20 ...
1. Toyota 111 points 2. Subaru 95 3. Ford 68 ...
(C) 1994 WRC Infosystem By Petri Karonen (pakar@tukki.jyu.fi). May not be reproduced without author's permission. Permission is automatically granted for non-commercial use provided that the author is notified of the reproduction.