Thierry Neuville was fastest on the final shakedown of the current Rally1 era at Rally Italy Sardinia, with Oliver Solberg the quickest of the title contenders.
Either Elfyn Evans, Sami Pajari or Solberg will be crowned World Rally champion for the first time in Sardinia – the new final round of the season after Saudi Arabia was pulled from the WRC calendar.
Evans holds the advantage with a 17-point lead over Pajari and a 21-point gap to Solberg, but will face the worst of the road conditions on Friday if the weather stays dry as expected.
On the first pass of shakedown – considered the most representative – Evans was therefore just seventh quickest, but Pajari was even slower (behind two Rally2 cars) as he had to stop due to obscured vision caused by Evans’ dust.
“There was a lot of dust and I hope it won’t be this bad in the rally otherwise I will have no chance,” Pajari lamented. “It is going to be a very exciting rally. We will do the best we can. We still have some chances [in the title race]. We are looking forward.”
Pajari eventually set the sixth fastest time, 2.2s behind Evans who was fourth.
The pair’s other championship rival, Solberg, was in the ascendency however, posting the fourth-fastest time on the first pass before eventually setting the second-best time overall, just one tenth shy of pacesetter Neuville.
“It is going to be very exciting,” said Solberg. “The championship will be a long shot that is for sure but everything is possible. I took 20 points on Elfyn last rally and I’m only 21 points behind. There will be a lot of cleaning here I think. We will see.”
Dani Sordo, returning for his first WRC start since June’s Acropolis Rally Greece, was the other big story of shakedown as the Spaniard carried too much speed into a tight right hander, ran off the road and hit a tree with the rear-left of his Hyundai.
He completed the first pass of shakedown but, with his rear suspension significantly rearranged, was unable to return to the warm-up stage.
Hyundai team-mate Neuville set the pace on both his, and the team’s, most successful WRC event, with the other i20 driven by Adrien Fourmaux slotting into fifth – behind third-placed Takamoto Katsuta and outgoing world champion Sébastien Ogier.
Evans was 2.2s off the pace in sixth but just 0.3s down on team-mate Ogier, with Mãrtiņš Sesks’ M-Sport Ford splitting him and Pajari.
Sesks felt “rusty” on the first pass having not driven in any rally for two months, but eventually was the fastest Puma by 2.4s over Josh McErlean. However McErlean was second quickest overall after the first pass.
Jon Armstrong propped up the top 10, half a second behind McErlean.
