Sébastien Ogier has extended his lead of Rally Italy Sardinia to 17.1 seconds at the end of Saturday, as Ott Tänak adopted a more cautious approach for the afternoon loop.
After a tit-for-tat battle between the two drivers during the morning that featured four changes of lead, the Toyota driver stamped his authority on the rally in the afternoon, winning three out of four stages.
Tänak had started the day as the stronger driver, taking the lead on the opening Tempio Pausania stage when Ogier suffered a puncture that cost him 4.5s. Ogier briefly snatched back the initiative on the next test, lost it again on Tempio Pausania and finally regained and retained it on the second pass of Tula.
By the first pass of Monte Lerno the momentum had shifted away from the top Hyundai: Tänak lost 6.8s to Ogier on SS9 and stated he had been asked to back off by the team: “We gave it a safe rhythm. We’ve been asked to be safe and not pushing.”
Tänak had the edge over Ogier on Saturday morning but backed off in the afternoon
From there, the rest of the day was Ogier’s. He was fastest on the next three stages and eased away from Tänak to ensure he will claim 18 points provided he completes all of Sunday’s stages.
Tänak’s caution was potentially influenced by the most dramatic incident of the day: championship leader Thierry Neuville crashing out of the rally on stage eight. His i20 N Rally1 slid off the road and down a bank after he lost concentration in a tight section of the stage, becoming stuck.
Up to that point, the championship leader had been in impressive form and had consolidated third place ahead of the Toyota of Takamoto Katsuta by setting the fastest time on stage seven.
Katsuta benefited from Neuville’s misfortune, moving into third place when the Hyundai went off the road, but that was to be short-lived, as Katsuta retired on the first run through Monte Lerno with transmission failure.
That allowed Dani Sordo to move into the podium positions, and, while he appeared to struggle with the rough conditions in the morning, the Hyundai driver was able to manage the gap to the chasing Elfyn Evans; beating him by 5.5s on stage nine and a further 6.9s on stage 11. He ends the day 30.5s clear of the Toyota.
Elfyn Evans may well have been wishing he was driving on asphalt – his issues finding a groove on gravel from Portugal have rolled over to Sardinia
For Evans, Saturday was another difficult day. The Toyota driver has struggled all weekend and his discomfort in the Yaris echoes the events of Rally Portugal just three weeks ago.
There was a glimmer of hope for Evans on the final pass of Coiluna–Loelle stage that brought Saturday to a close, as he clinched a first stage win of the rally by beating team-mate Ogier by 0.4s.
While grateful to end the day in fourth place and provisionally bank 10 points for his title bid, Evans was all too aware that his position was not a result of his own speed: “We’ve been helped a lot by our competitors with how things have been this weekend,” he said, “Fourth place is fine at the end of the day but not where we want to be fighting.”
Grégoire Munster was sixth fastest on the final stage and finally passed the WRC2 Toyota of Sami Pajari to move into fifth place in the overall standings. It was an improvement for the M-Sport driver who spent much of the day sweeping the road, especially after team-mate Adrien Fourmaux was delayed earlier in the day.
For Fourmaux, it has been an extremely challenging day. Following retirement on the final stage on Friday with an electrical fault, he was left running first on the road for much of the morning. However, a brake issue prior to the midday tire zone required him to replace a damaged brake pipe. This caused him to spend the remainder of the day running out of position but did mean he avoided as much road sweeping.
“It’s been a difficult day anyway, since midday,” said Fourmaux. “I’m quite happy with the pace with no roll bar. It’s been interesting, it’s been good experience. We can be happy about the day anyway.”
Yohan Rossel climbed 14 positions and won every stage in a superlative Saturday performance
In WRCs, Sami Pajari remains comfortably in the lead and, thanks to retirements among the Rally1 crews, is in sixth place overall. The Toyota driver holds a 54.7s advantage over the Citroën of Yohan Rossel, who has been in recovery mode following a puncture on Friday.
Rossel pulled off a clean sweep of stage wins, jumping from 15th place at the end of Friday to second place by the penultimate stage of Saturday.
On the first pass of the Tula stage, Rossel was 17.3s quicker than second-fastest Pajari as he made his way up the leaderboard, and eventually moved into second place on the penultimate stage of the day. Jan Solans is third in WRC2, 12s behind the flying Rossel.
As in the top class, retirements have characterized events in WRC2. Pierre-Louis Loubet was second for much of the morning but lost 1m57.8s on the second pass of Tula. He was thenforced to retire the car with an unspecified mechanical problem.
The Hyundai i20 of Nicolas Ciamin retired on the first pass of Tula, and the Frenchman was joined on the retirement list by fellow Hyundai pilots Teemu Suninen and Emil Lindholm, who both stopped on the re-run of Tula; Suninen with an unspecified technical problem and Lindholm with a holed radiator.
