After Gerard De Rooy won SS2 for Iveco and took over the rally lead,  the Dutch team was really fired up for yesterday's third stage which ran from San Rafael to San Juan. The third special stage was 209 kilometres long and was driven at an average speed of 74 km/h along a very winding, rocky and narrow track. Many riverbeds prevented the drivers from overtaking and this made this stage a troublesome one, and, according to some team members, a boring day.

It was however certainly not a boring day for Miki Biasion and yesterday it was confirmed all over again of exactly what he is capable of as he took the baton over from team leader Gerard de Rooy. 

The time differences between the competitors during the special stage were marginal. At WP1 there were almost no changes compared to the starting order: #502 Gerard De Rooy came through first, followed by the Kamaz driver, Karginov, who was 7 seconds behind. Third was the #505 Iveco of Hans Stacey at 9 seconds and the #518 of Biasion, who was at that moment still 21 seconds behind. 

From WP2 onwards, the die was cast. Gerard De Rooy dropped out of the top five runners on the stage with a technical setback. “The cooling-water tube was leaking,” explained De Rooy. “That was only one thing, but repairing and refilling the cooling-water is another thing when you just went through a riverbed and the underside of the truck is fully wet. Try to find the leak. We lost 5 to 6 minutes at the minimum.”

Biasion took over the lead from WP2 onwards and he clocked through at 1:39:44. Stacey was still doing well and was exactly one and a half minutes behind at WP2. The two Iveco support truck running team members Jo Adua and Pep Vila came through respectively tenth at 6.31 minutes and fifteenth at 11.27 minutes making them a very strongly placed assistance team. 

WP3 was 35 kilometres from WP2 and showed off an equal picture of the competition. At the finishing line it turned out that the Iveco Trakker Evo II of Biasion was just too strong for the other competitors and he clocked an unbeaten time of 2.50.53 hours. The Kamaz-Astana driver Ardavichus from Kazakstan finished second, 1.09 minutes behind Biasion and he therefore took the lead in the general rankings from De Rooy. Third in yesterday’s stage was the Russian Karginov, followed by Loprais in his Tatra. They were followed by the next three Team de Rooy entries in sixth, seventh and eight places, with, respectively, Stacey at 4.37 minutes, Adua – the first of the fast assistance trucks – at 8.03 minutes, and the struggling De Rooy at 8.57 minutes. Vila also performed well and took fourteenth place, 20.49 minutes behind the leader. 

The Kamaz rider, Ardavichus thus assumed the lead in the rankings, followed by De Rooy, who has recovered well from his setback and is just 28 seconds behind. Biasion's fighting drive sees him rocket up the leaderboard to third place, at 1.51 minutes off the top spot while Stacey is fourth at 1.57 minutes.

According to the organisers, today's stage will be one of the most beautiful. The convoy of cars, bikes, quads and trucks will start with a 424 kilometre long liaison section followed by a special stage of 326 kilometres. They will reach a height of 3,500 metres near WP1. Biasion will be the first to leave, at 14.47 hours (local time).