Argentina WRC: Tanak takes first win with Toyota

Tanak, who joined Toyota from M-Sport this year, took his first win with the Japanese brand, and his third in the WRC.

His lead was 46.5 seconds as the day started and, despite not topping any of the three stages, he still won by a comfortable margin of 37.7s.

Thierry Neuville topped the last two stages of the day, including the Power Stage, and took second overall, nearly doubling his advantage over his Hyundai teammate Dani Sordo in the process.

The Spaniard took third, taking his second podium finish of the season out of four rallies.

Fourth place was fought between Sebastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen, the latter topping the day-starting SS16 and finishing less than a second off Neuville in both of the following stages.

Ogier lost 12 seconds in SS17 but matched Mikkelsen on the other two runs, beating the Norwegian to second in the Power Stage by two tenths, and holding on to fourth overall by four seconds.

British duo Elfyn Evans and Kris Meeke jumped ahead of Esapekka Lappi, who had a puncture on SS16, to secure sixth and seventh respectively.

Teemu Suninen was ninth with Pontus Tidemand claiming 10th and the WRC2 win as a late drama resulted in class leader Kalle Rovanpera crashing out on the penultimate stage.

Final results

Pos.	Driver	Car	Time/Gap
1	Ott Tanak	Toyota	3h43m28.9s
2	Thierry Neuville	Hyundai	37.7s
3	Dani Sordo	Hyundai	1m15.7s
4	Sebastien Ogier	M-Sport Ford	1m58.6s
5	Andreas Mikkelsen	Hyundai	2m02.6s
6	Elfyn Evans	M-Sport Ford	3m06.3s
7	Kris Meeke	Citroen	3m25.7s
8	Esapekka Lappi	Toyota	4m32.6s
9	Teemu Suninen	M-Sport Ford	5m38.6s
10	Pontus Tidemand	Skoda	12m15.8s