Ostberg competed in his 2017-specification Ford for the first time in Sweden, but retired from the opening day after losing the rear wing on his Fiesta WRC.

He had always planned to skip Mexico, the date for the Leon-based event clashing with the arrival of his first child. Now he won't see WRC action again until Argentina later next month.

Ostberg said: "It became clear a few days ago that we were not guaranteed to get the proper Tarmac suspension for our car to Corsica and furthermore [there was] no time to test on Tarmac.

"There is no reason for us to do the rally only to drive the roads with untested material. Therefore, I will enjoy a few weeks extra "daddy leave" before Argentina instead of pushing ahead to do a rally where we won't stand a chance to get a result.

"I am looking forward to Argentina as my next rally and have planned a test on gravel in Europe and possibly a day test on Argentinian roads before the event starts."

Being a private driver, Ostberg is permitted to test his car outside of Europe.

Ostberg ran the car in Norway last week, working on the differential and suspension set-up.

He added: "Snow and ice is not very relevant for the rest of the season, but there were lots of things we couldn't try in Sweden because of late delivery of the car and generally too little time to test before the event.

"After driving a couple of days in Norway I already feel we have taken huge steps in knowing the car and set-up possibilities."