FIA Orders Argentina To Revamp Its 2016 WRC Route

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The second and longest day of next month's Rally Argentina has been scrapped and redrawn following World Rally Championship safety delegate Michele Mouton's visit to the stages.

Mouton recently visited the Villa Carlos Paz event and was not happy with what she saw of the northern-most roads, which had been planned for day two.

The event organizers have come up with a new route much closer to service, shortening the second day while keeping the stage mileage high.

"Saturday's stages were a long way to the north of the service park and I understand why they did this—they were taking the route away from the spectators to try to avoid the problems we had last year," Mouton said.

"The trouble is that the three stages they had used were in very quick succession with very little road section between them.

"There were two problems: these were stages from Dakar, just straight roads and too fast.
"The other problem was that you could only get spectators into the first stage.

"So now we have three stages much closer to Cordoba [the biggest population centre], but with enough room for the spectators.

"I am happy with what they have done."

Last year's Rally Argentina received an official reprimand from the governing body for its poor safety record.

WRC manager Jarmo Mahonen made it clear a repeat performance in 2016 would result in the event being ejected from the calendar.

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