Rally - Meeke in Argentina

It wasn’t actually broken steering which forced Mads Østberg’s retirement from Rally Argentina, it was an injury sustained during the event.  He hurt his hand when the steering kicked-back after hitting a bump on SS9 near the end of the second full day of rallying. He tried to re-start the final day, but it was extremely painful and with his injury preventing him from racing properly, the Norwegian decided – with the agreement of the team – to retire after SS12.

With a firm grip on third position since Friday, Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle pursued their clearly-defined strategy of avoiding making any mistakes to secure their second podium finish of the season in the Citroën DS3 WRC.

Afterwards Kris said: “I was determined to get a good result at this Rally Argentina. I focussed on driving as precisely as possible so as to not take any risks. I used every second I had to make sure of getting across the finish line. It was difficult but this is a fantastic result. I would like to dedicate it to everyone in the team. They put a lot of faith in me, so I owed them one!”

Mads Østberg added: “Yesterday, on the penultimate stage of the day, I got a bad kick back through the steering on my right hand. We tried to carry on today with the injury. I was having to drive with only my left hand and it was too dangerous and too painful. It wasn’t sensible to keep going. We talked it through with the team and we decided to stop after the first loop.”

Photos: Citroen Racing/Austral