Jari-Matti Latvala's bid to win Rally Argentina has suffered an early setback after his Ford Fiesta RS WRC suffered a transmission-related failure during shakedown for the world championship round.
Latvala had completed one run through the 3.87-mile Carlos Paz-Cabalango practice stage and had just left the start line for his second pass when the problem occurred.
"I went a few meters forward and lost the drive," said Latvala. "I thought it was driveshaft, I kept going slowly to the end of the shakedown road, then came on the road section. I was a bit worried [about] what is wrong with the car so I stopped there. It's on the transmission side but I don't know exactly what is the problem."
Latvala's car is being returned to the service park in Villa Carlos Paz where Ford engineers will examine the exact cause of the problem and carry out repairs.
Petter Solberg was also delayed during shakedown following a front-right driveshaft failure on his privateer Citroen DS3 WRC. Benoit Nogier, boss of Citroen Racing Technologies said: "We have to check the data because he did not hit anything."