Adrien Fourmaux’s hopes of a first World Rally Championship win have taken a blow on Rally Italy Sardinia, with a puncture on the Lerno test costing him a minute and promoting Oliver Solberg to second place.
Hyundai had been 1-2 in Sardinia after Friday’s stages and a fastest time for Thierry Neuville has extended his lead further to 14.4 seconds – but Fourmaux picked up a front-left deflation on Saturday’s first stage and drove on it to the finish, dropping him from second to fifth place overall.
Crucially, Fourmaux’s time loss was limited enough that it dropped him in between Solberg and Evans, so the gap in the virtual points ranking between the pair has fallen to 12 points. Were Solberg to catch Neuville, that would fall to four – putting Solberg in prime position to chase the title by pushing for a full house of Sunday points.
Solberg, sensing an opportunity, is pushing to turn his long-shot odds of becoming champion into a reality.
“For sure there is a chance,” said Solberg, who overshot a right-hand junction after a gate early on the Lerno test.
“First time for me doing this stage and in this car but the others know the stage so well. It wasn’t a good stage but it was clean, so let’s see.
“The next two are a bit new sections and the last one [Solorche] is new so hopefully I can take some time there.”
Neuville commiserated with his team-mate, with the puncture ending hopes that Hyundai could end the Rally1 era on a high with a 1-2 finish following a difficult season that Toyota has dominated.
“Obviously disappointed for Adrien,” said Neuville. “It would have been a nice battle with him today and would have been intense until the very end.”
Fourmaux’s puncture moves Sébastien Ogier up to the final podium position, 29.8s adrift of Solberg. Sami Pajari, the last of the title contenders, is a further 10.9s behind in fourth.
Evans has little hope of catching Fourmaux on pace alone: he’s still 25.8s behind the second Hyundai despite the i20 N Rally1’s front-left deflation on Lerno and starts several cars ahead in the road order.
Dani Sordo, who was already well down the order after his retirement from a crash on Friday’s final stage, has retired from the rally after complaining of pain in his back and sides.
Dani Sordo's shakedown shunt appears worse than initially feared, as he drove back to service straight after Saturday's first stage in pain
The third Hyundai had crashed into a tree on Thursday’s shakedown test and Sordo complained the pain from that crash had started to get worse.
“It’s really bad with my ribs, I can’t continue like this,” he said after Lerno. “It’s really painful under braking and mpacts. I think I have something broken because I couldn’t drive. After the Shakedown crash it was more and more. It’s a lot of pain in my back and my side. I can’t concentrate.”
Sordo drove straight back to service after SS8 and retired for the day.
Josh McErlean is over half a minute behind Evans in seventh in the lead M-Sport car. Takamoto Katsuta, Jon Armstrong and Mārtinš Sesks complete the top 10, the trio covered by 19.4s after all three stopped to change punctures on Friday.
