WRC Rally Argentina: Evans lead cut by two punctures on Saturday

The DMACK Ford driver started the day with a stage win on Tanti, which extended his lead to over a minute for the first time as overnight second-place man Mads Ostberg fell behind Thierry Neuville due to a hydraulic problem.

But Evans developed a slow puncture and was only fifth fastest on the long Los Gigantes stage that followed.

He then damaged another tyre by running wide on the Boca del Arroyo stage and was only eighth quickest there.

Evans refitted the tyre with the slow puncture to get back to service, with his lead over Neuville's Hyundai now down to 44.1 seconds.

Ostberg's problem on the opener left him without a handbrake, and he also shed his Ford's diffuser in a watersplash that caused dramas for many drivers.

He was able to resolve the hydraulic glitch before the next stage and then ended the loop with second-fastest time on Boca del Arroyo, bringing him back to within 8.9s of Neuville in second and 4.1s ahead of the chasing Ott Tanak.

Sebastien Ogier struggled all morning. Slowing down to dodge a dog and then half-spinning in the watersplash cost him time on Tanti, and he then complained of severe handling problems on the subsequent stages.

By the end of the loop Ogier was convinced something had broken on his M-Sport Ford, and he had fallen to fifth behind team-mate Tanak, who made good progress through the morning despite two spins.

After his Friday puncture, Jari-Matti Latvala is still sixth but was able to close to within 14.1s of the troubled Ogier.

The second Toyota of Juho Hanninen got up to eighth ahead of Lorenzo Bertelli only to suffer a repeat of the power loss that cost him so much time on Friday and immediately lose the place to the Ford privateer again.

Dani Sordo is edging ever close to returning to the points after breaking a steering arm on leg one, and is now 2m14.3s off WRC2 leader Pontus Tidemand's 10th place.

Citroen managed to get Kris Meeke's car back in action under Rally2 following his substantial Friday accident. He was quickest of all on both SS11 and SS12.

But his team-mate Craig Breen, who had a gearbox failure on day one, was left stranded at service as his car developed an oil leak.

LEADING POSITIONS AFTER SS12: