All three Toyota World Rally Championship drivers were fortunate to make it to the end of Friday’s opening day of action at Rally Argentina.
Ott Tanak and Kris Meeke both led the event, but both suffered potentially rally-ending transmission problems with their Yaris WRCs on the day’s final stage.
Their team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala picked up two punctures while carrying only one spare wheel and hobbled back into service with a flat left-rear.
Regulations dictate cars must travel on road sections with four inflated tyres and Latvala just about fulfilled that stipulation.
Despite those issues, Tanak sits third with Meeke one place further back and Latvala eighth.
Tanak talked of a broken left-front driveshaft midway through the final stage, but the team later confirmed to Autosport the problem was with the rubber boot that sits around the shaft where it connects with the differential.
Technical director Tom Fowler said: “The boot went missing in the stage. We’ve seen this before here: it could have been the force of the water in a watersplash or it might have been a rock which damaged it.
“The driveshaft is actually undamaged, but the [exposed] joint has had some material go inside and force a bearing out – this is what caused the failure.
“You would have seen Ott spin in the stage and we think the failure happened just before this – he didn’t have that front [left] inside wheel to pull him through the corner.”
Meeke’s car lost third gear on that stage.
“I went for third and got a ‘brrrrrr’ noise and there was no gear,” he said.
“Obviously you use third a fair bit in these stages and I was a wee bit worried that it could do more damage when I kept having to go through that gear from [from second to fourth].
“Once we were out of the stage we did the road section no problem. It’s been a tough day.”
Meeke is 28.1 seconds off the front, with Tanak 13.4s behind overnight leader Thierry Neuville.
Despite the problem, Tanak is confident ahead of Saturday’s seven stages.
“I think [Saturday] will suit us and our car a little bit more,” he said.
“The road was a little bit destroyed for us [on Friday] afternoon. It hasn’t been easy day, we had some brake problems after the watersplashes as well.”
Fowler added: “We seem to have one stage in each rally at the moment where the whole field has a crazy moment and that was the last stage.
“Jari-Matti has come back here with two punctures and only one spare and with that last road section being quite long, he’s had to swap between those punctured tyres to get back. He’s been quite fortunate.
“It’s not been a great afternoon for the team, but it could have been an awful lot worse.”