Oliver Solberg has put himself in serious contention to win the World Rally Championship drivers’ title, usurping Thierry Neuville for the lead of Rally Italy Sardinia on the Solorche stage to close the gap in the virtual championship standings to four points.
As overnight leader, Neuville was last car on the road and used his road order advantage to good effect on the Saturday opener, winning the Lerno test. But Solberg put the hammer down on the rest of the loop: he won the Coiluna-Loelle test and beat Neuville by 11.1s, then took another 6s on the brand new Solorche test.
Despite his double scratch to finish the Saturday morning loop, Solberg insisted he wasn’t in all-or-nothing mode.
“A little bit careful sometimes,” said Solberg of his stage win on Solorche. “It’s a tricky stage and I didn’t want to take any risk and try to have a rhythm.”
Neuville is now 2.7s behind Solberg in second place and playing the long game, confident that he can keep up with the lead Toyota.
Thierry Neuville could become Elfyn Evans biggest asset in the title decider, should he fend off Solberg's charge for victory
“I am sure we can keep in the fight with Oliver but let’s see,” said Neuville. “He will definitely go all-in, we’re gonna see depending on the feeling how it works.”
Elfyn Evans is languishing in sixth place, 42.2s behind fellow title contender Sami Pajari. He is under no threat from behind but as fifth car on the road – compared to eighth for Solberg – the championship leader is unable to respond to Solberg’s charge.
“With the road cleaning so much I’m realistically not going to catch anyone in front, so I just have to stay clean for now,” said Evans. As things stand Evans would finish the season on 238 points to Solberg’s 234 and 223 for Pajari, with 10 additional points still to play for on Sunday.
Sébastien Ogier remains third, having inherited a podium place from Adrien Fourmaux’s puncture on Saturday’s first stage. Though happy with his driving, he felt his road position hindered him from making inroads into the leading pair and is 39.9s adrift of the top spot.
Fourmaux rapidly dispatched Pajari of fourth place on the Coiluna-Loelle stage but hasn’t been able to make serious inroads into Ogier for the final podium place, the gap between the compatriots now 17.4s.
Pajari’s hopes of becoming world champion are fading further, having fallen behind Fourmaux to fifth and feeling his road position left him unable to achieve more.
Sami Pajari is fading into a distant third place in the title race
“I’m not giving up,” said Pajari. “I’m not backing off but we need to see what is possible at the moment. In a way it feels impossible to match the times they are doing a few cars after.”
Josh McErlean continues to spearhead M-Sport’s challenge in seventh overall, though has fallen well adrift of Evans.
The lead Ford Puma driver struggled more than most to cope with the lingering dust on Saturday’s opening test and then dropped another 12.2s to Evans on Solorche, pitching his car into a half spin on purpose to avoid clattering into a tree. That error left him 51.7s off Evans overall.
Takamoto Katsuta and Jon Armstrong remain engaged in a close battle for eighth overall. On Saturday’s first two stages Katsuta began to pull away from the second but on Solorche, a brand new stage for all the Rally1 crews, Armstrong recouped 3.6s to settle the gap overall at 8.6s headed to midday service.
Mārtinš Sesks is falling adrift of the Rally1 pack in 10th overall, with the M-Sport part-timer now 45.3s adrift of Katsuta after starting the day only 19.8s away from eighth place.
