MOTORSPORT: Toyota joins winners in WRC

Toyota has become the third manufacturer to win in five rounds of this year’s World Rally Championship.

Estonian Ott Tanak, in his first season driving a Yaris after departing the M-Sport Ford team, won 10 of the 18 stages of the weekend’s Rally Argentina, taking victory 37.7 seconds ahead of the Hyundai i20 of Belgian Thierry Neuville.

Another Hyundai, in the hands of Spaniard Dani Sordo, was third, 38 seconds further back.

Argentina remains the only round of the WRC that France’s five-time world champion Sebastien Ogier hasn’t won.

Particularly cautious in fog on the middle leg this time, Ogier finished fourth in his Ford Fiesta – and second to Neuville on the final Power Stage – with a third Hyundai, driven by Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen, four seconds behind him in fifth.

Ogier, winner of the Monte Carlo Rally and in Mexico and on the French island of Corsica this year, leads the drivers’ championship, but Neuville, victor in Sweden, has narrowed the gap to 10 points (100-90), while Tanak is third on 72.

However, Hyundai heads the manufacturers’ standings with 144 points to Ford’s 129 while Toyota is now on 124. Citroen, the other major participating manufacturer, has 93 points.

Northern Irishman Kris Meeke could do no better than seventh in Argentina, his C3 finishing almost 3½ minutes behind the victorious Yaris and almost 20 seconds behind the Fiesta of Welshman Elfyn Evans, who had been a narrow runner-up to Neuville last year.

Irishman Craig Breen rolled his C3 out of sixth on Saturday.

Tanak’s victory was his third in the WRC, after two last year with M-Sport, but he had looked down and out after damaging the Toyota’s steering when he hit a rock on the opening stage.

Then on the second leg a damaged front right shock absorber and power steering problems forced him to ease off.

“That was really hard. The oil leaked out of the damper and I lost the use of the power steering before it came back,” he said.

But ultimately his first success with Toyota – and the manufacturer’s first since the middle of last year – was “a special one”.

“I had a great feeling with the car,” Tanak said.

“It’s a massive boost for a driver if you have the confidence. I can’t say it was easy. I was pushing really hard and living on the edge on Friday and Saturday.”

The next WRC round is in Portugal on May 17-20.

Skoda wins first up in ARC

Triple Australian rally champion Eli Evans has notched his first ARC round win since 2015, driving a Skoda Fabia R5 to victory on debut at the weekend’s Forest Rally in Western Australia.

Evans and co-driver Ben Searcy won both heats and 15 of the 19 stages in the Skoda prepared by Perth’s Race Torque Engineering.

After finishing third in the earlier round, the Eureka Rally at Ballarat in Victoria, in an AP4 MINI Cooper, Evans now leads the championship by five points (137-132) from Subaru WRX STI driver Steve Glenney.

Evans said the Skoda was “a WRC2-spec car and really easy to drive”.

Glenney said the Skoda was “in a different league to what we are running” and beautifully driven by Evans, while he had been “the best of the rest”.

“The championship is a long thing, consistency is the key,” said Glenney, who has returned to the ARC this year after a long absence and been runner-up at both rounds (as well as in recent tarmac rally, Targa Tasmania). He was partnered in WA by Andy Sarandis.

Molly Taylor’s fourth places in her Subaru both days gave her the third podium spot at the Forest Rally.

Ballarat winner Harry Bates improved from sixth in Saturday’s heat to second in Sunday’s in his Toyota Yaris AP4 but wound up fifth for the weekend, behind Glen Raymond who made Saturday’s podium in his Subaru.

The next round of the ARC is the National Capital Rally in Canberra on June 1-3, an event that also doubles as a round of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship.