Thierry Neuville has taken the lead of Rally Italy Sardinia from Hyundai team-mate Adrien Fourmaux by just 0.4s, while Elfyn Evans is doing enough to stay on track for a maiden World Rally Championship drivers’ title after Friday’s stages.
Fastest times on both passes of the Tula stage helped Fourmaux to first position on Friday morning but Neuville put the hammer down on the day-ending Monti di Ala’ test, going 5.1s faster than Fourmaux to nab the lead at the very end of Friday’s action.
“Our tire management and our tire choice paid off,” said Neuville. “I was tempted to make a similar choice as him [Adrien] but in the end I was pretty confident that my feeling was a good one.
“A great day for Hyundai and Adrien as well; it’s a nice battle and hopefully we can continue tomorrow.”
Fourmaux said he’d struggled to see due to low-hanging dust at moments on Friday’s final test, which ultimately contributed to him losing the rally lead.
Hanging dust was prevalent on several stages during Friday's action in Sardinia
“We have quite a lot of dust in the stage already coming,” said Fourmaux. “I thought Séb [Ogier] had a puncture [running ahead on the road] so the gap was reduced. I see more dust coming now, so there were many places I was hesitating and losing time.”
Close behind the Hyundai duo is Oliver Solberg. The best-placed Toyota driver is in need of a maximum 35-point score in Sardinia to have any hope of overhauling Evans in the drivers’ title race and put the hammer down, winning the first run of Monte di Ala’ and second-fastest on the afternoon pass.
Solberg is the only Toyota still within reach of the lead battle, 12.3s behind Neuville and now with better road position for Saturday’s stages.
Sami Pajari’s hopes of contending for the title took a dent on the final stage when outgoing world champion Sébastien Ogier passed him for fourth place on Friday’s final stage, shuffling him higher up the road order for Saturday and putting him behind Solberg in the projected championship standings as things stand.
“Overall today we did pretty much what we can,” said Pajari, who is 2.8s behind Ogier but already 40.2s off the lead. “I think we beat Elfyn on every single stage, so it shows how crucial road position is.
“It’s still two more days to go and I hope we are well in the fight. We really tried to do all we can today.”
Evans struggled with sweeping the most on Monte di Ala' – but is doing enough to keep his title bid on track thus far
Evans is a further 28.7s behind Ogier in sixth but is doing enough to claim a maiden WRC drivers’ title, with his projected points gap currently 14 ahead of the chasing Solberg and 15 up on Pajari.
“I guess tomorrow will be the test,” said Evans, “[and] how we can respond with a better road position.”
M-Sport duo Josh McErlean and Jon Armstrong are seventh and eighth overall. McErlean lost time on Friday morning with a harder tire selection than the Toyotas and Hyundais amid tire wear concerns, though clawed time back on Evans in the afternoon thanks to road cleaning and reduced the gap to 12.2s.
Armstrong had a near miss on the second pass of Tula in the exact spot Adrien Fourmaux ran wide and went rally-raid style off-stage in 2025, the rear kicking high over a crest and landing him nose-first and almost off the road.
That dramatic moment aside the afternoon was much better for Armstrong, having found a better setup window than the morning – during which he’d struggled to match his team-mates. His uptick in pace was enough to pass Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta on Friday’s final stage, as the the Japanese driver continued to fume over a puncture he’d sustained earlier in the day.
Sordo had suffered a crash on shakedown, a penalty at the rally's first time control, a jump start penalty on SS1 and a puncture on SS3. A crash on SS7 multiplied his Sardinia woe further.
Mārtinš Sesks completes the top 10 overall in the third Ford Puma Rally1, 13.7s behind Katsuta.
Dani Sordo’s difficult start to the rally took a turn for the worse on Friday’s final stage, understeering wide at a fast left-hander and clipping a solid obkect on the verge, sending his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 straight on and into rocks on the opposite side. Sordo and co-driver Patricia Sáiz, making her WRC debut this week, were OK after the off but their car was not, retiring on the spot.
Gus Greensmith took the lead of WRC2 on Friday’s final stage after Teemu Suninen stopped to change a wheel; the recently-crowned European Rally Champion then lost further time sat in Greensmith’s dust after getting back underway, at one point sliding wide and clipping a tree.
Škoda driver Emil Lindholm and Lancia’s Pablo Sarrazin had been first in line to benefit from Suninen’s demise but they too ran into trouble on Monte di Ala’, dropping minutes each and falling to third and sixth place respectively.
Roope Korhonen is now Greensmith’s closest challenger, 2.2s off the WRC2 class lead.
