WRC ARGENTINA: BLOCK TEARS IT UP ON LEG 1

Keep it clean and steady. That was Monster World Rally Team’s Ken Block and Alex Gelsomino’s plan for the second day of racing at WRC Argentina and it paid off for the duo. After Day 1’s six stages, the pair sit on the leader board overnight in 9th place overall.

“The stages down here in Argentina are the most difficult I’ve ever encountered and I’m super impressed that all of the top drivers have been as aggressive as they have been on these roads without having any major problems,” said Block. I took it pretty easy on the first three stages in the morning, but I was feeling more confident in the afternoon and upped my pace a bit. I’m just trying to have a good, clean rally here, especially since I’m just getting back in the WRC car and I’m coming off of that big crash in Portugal.”

Over the course of the day, Block stuck to the gameplan of clean lines and a steady pace. Which, seeing as he hadn’t been behind the wheel of his Monster Energy Ford Fiesta RS WRC in the 2 months since his crash in Portugal—and that it was his first time on the roads of Argentina—was a good one. But, you can’t fight the need for speed and Block still found himself putting down solid stage times throughout the day, including being within 1.59 seconds per KM of fellow Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala’s stage-winning pace on SS5

“I do have about a 5-minute gap over 10th place right now though and we’re sitting in points contention, so things are going pretty well. I also got to do a bit of hooning today at the tail end of El Cóndor on SS7, which was awesome. I knew we had that lead and were still a ways off of 8th place, so I decided to put on a show for all of the fans and drifted a bunch of the tarmac corners. I’m really stoked on just how many fans there are out here on the stages, it’s wild!”

Block and Gelsomino are back at it again on Saturday morning as they continue on into the second leg of stages for WRC Argentina. Follow us during the rally at facebook.com/KenBlockRacing and Twitter.com/MWRT.