Australian Chris Atkinson continued his consistent and mature approach
to the Rally of Argentina today to remain inside the top ten with one
day of competition remaining.
After finishing the opening leg in ninth position Atkinson and his West
Australian co-driver were the seventh crew to tackle today's seven
stages in the region surrounding Cordoba.
Throughout the day Atkinson consistently set times inside the top six
and was less than one-second per kilometre behind the pace set by the
leaders. By virtue of his speed, he recorded top ten finishes in six of
the seven stages contested.
The highlight for the 26-year-old's day came when he recorded the third
fastest time on the final stage of the day, the 10.95km Valle Hermoso --
Casa Grande stage.
"Overall it has been a good day. We have had a good afternoon where
we set a third fastest stage time and a couple of top six times.
Unfortunately we couldn't catch the guys in front of us but we are still
happy to be where we are," said Atkinson.
"We made a small change to the set up of the Subaru during the midday
service and it felt a lot better across this afternoon's three stages.
The roads were pretty muddy and slippery today so to be able to do those
times for our first rally in Argentina we are pretty happy.
"It has been raining a lot all weekend and there is mud everywhere, the
main aim is just to try and stay on the road so far our approach seems
to be working well. I am looking forward to the final leg and gaining a
solid overall result tomorrow."
Defending World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb leads the event in
his Citroen 26.6 seconds clear of Finnish driver Marcus Gronholm.
Atkinson's Subaru team-mate Petter Solberg is in third position.
The event continues tomorrow with the final leg to be contested over
64.13 kilometres across five competitive stages. The first car will
take to the opening stage of the day at 8:30am.
-ca-
