Adrien Fourmaux has retired from Rally Italy Sardinia after his Ford Puma ground to a halt on Friday’s final stage.
The M-Sport driver had already dropped from third to sixth place on the second pass of the Osilo – Tergu stage, having suffered a left-rear puncture that cost him 40s.
But his rally ended one stage later, his car limping through in EV mode and then grounding to a halt mid-stage with an electrical fault.
“Some kind of electrical issue has stopped him on the stage,” said M-Sport team principal Richard Millener. “I don’t think there is anything he can do now to get to the end of that stage so we’re just looking to organize recovery sadly.”
Out front Sébastien Ogier ended Friday with a lead of 4.5 seconds over Hyundai’s Ott Tänak. After winning the rally’s opening stage Ogier dropped time on SS2, meaning the gap to Tänak was just 1.8s after the first 24.2 miles of competition.
Sébastien Ogier was widely expected to be in the battle for the lead and so it has proven to be
He extended that gap to 4.7 seconds on the second run through Osilo – Tergu, but Tänak stole two-tenths back on Friday’s final test to ensure the battle continues into Saturday.
“We lost a bit of time passing Adrien [Fourmaux] in this one but that’s the way, maybe we can get that back,” Ogier said. “It’s been extremely rough, really demanding for the tires, it was risky with five tires.”
The lead pair moved clear of the rest of the field, aided by Fourmaux’s woes. The contest for third place is now a duel between Dani Sordo and Takamoto Katsuta; Hyundai’s third driver passed Katsuta on stage two and holds a slim 1.3s.
A mix-up at service meant Hyundai had unintentionally put a soft tire in the back of Sordo’s i20 as a spare, instead of the planned hard compound. That led to Sordo being cautious to avoid high tire wear: “It was a little bit on the limit with five tires, four hard and one soft, but in the end we managed, so it was good.”
Championship leader Thierry Neuville is fifth after setting the fastest time on the final stage, 3.7s quicker than team-mate Tänak. The Hyundai driver was happy with his day’s work considering he’d been first car on the road.
“That has definitely been the hardest day you could imagine to open the road for Rally Sardinia,” said Neuville. “Luckily it was only half a day, but we lost so much time. We had good tire management despite not having the perfect tire choice. I was completely wrong with the tire choice with five hards [instead of six].”
Elfyn Evans is 20.7s behind his title rival in sixth place. He’d lost a little time on SS2 with a slow puncture but offered a blunt assessment of his opening day in Sardinia: “Of course, I’m disappointed with the day. It’s been a crap start, but we’ve got to keep trying tomorrow and let’s see what comes of the event.”
With Fourmaux out for the day, Grégoire Munster finished Friday as the sole Ford Puma in seventh place, 1m09.2s off the leading pace. He had a minor brush with the scenery on SS3 with the rear of his car but continued unaffected.
Sami Pajari has taken the lead for now in WRC2 after Pierre-Louis Loubet lost time in Emil Lindholm’s dust, as the 2022 WRC2 champion had stopped mid-stage on SS3. Pajari’s 1.2s deficit was turned into a 14.8s lead and the Toyota driver added another 3.5s to his lead with a stage win on SS4.
Ott Tänak remains within touching distance of the lead
Jan Solans moved up to third place but faces strife, having knocked the rear-left suspension of his Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 out of whack with an impact. He attempted to fix it roadside after Friday’s final stage and tried to limp on – but it remains uncertain whether he’ll make it to service in Alghero.
WRC2 points leader Yohan Rossel was forced to stop in stage three to change a wheel and cost him 1m58.4s, dropping him out of the podium battle and down to 15th.
A stage win on SS4 for Georg Linnamäe promoted him to fourth place in WRC2, 1.1s ahead of Marco Bulacia.
