If we fancied being facetious, we’d suggest you missed nothing if you weren’t locked in on Rally Italy Sardinia.
The top three – Sébastien Ogier, Ott Tänak and Kalle Rovanperä – was exactly the same as Portugal! (The first time that’s happened on successive events since 2008).
Of course if you weren’t avidly following Sardinia, you missed plenty. But luckily you’ve stumbled upon the right place to catch yourself up.
This is what we learned from Rally Italy Sardinia 2025:
The Sesks bubble has burst
The talk heading into Sardinia was of the need to lower expectations on Mãrtiņš Sesks. He’d stunned last year to earn his part-season this term, but expecting him to replicate that was never going to be feasible.
However it’s fair to expect a lot more than we saw in Sardinia.
Sesks has repeatedly stated that his mission is to bank experience rather than chase a headline result, but you don’t get that by sitting at the side of the road after just one completed stage.
The positive is that Sesks and co-driver Renãrs Francis walked away unscathed from what was a high-speed, fifth-gear accident. But with the damage too extensive to economically repair, they missed out on ultra-valuable seat time and will arrive in Greece in a fortnight under considerably more pressure.
In a few days they are at least back on more familiar ground in the ERC at Rally Poland, where Sesks has the opportunity to score a big result and rediscover some momentum.
Neuville’s title defense hanging by a thread
Thierry Neuville’s right. If there’s anything he’s trademarked for, it’s his dogged fighting spirit and refusal to give up.
And he’s right to not give up either. You just never know what can happen in a sport as wild as rallying.
But the worrying facts remain: Neuville has only outscored the championship leader (Elfyn Evans) once this season, has won fewer stages than Takamoto Katsuta and has an average 2025 finishing position of seventh.
Neuville needed to score a big result in Sardinia, and was on to do just that before he got unlucky (his words) on Friday and ripped a wheel off while leading.
Now that need has only got stronger heading to Greece with a 50-point deficit, but at least this was the place where Neuville really stamped his authority on the championship last year. That omen, plus a good road position, offer light at the end of an increasingly dark tunnel.
Ogier’s falling into title contention again
It’s ironic that Sébastien Ogier should request his racing boots to be silver (to combat high temperatures) on a weekend where he, yet again, proved his gold standard.
It was a very similar story to Portugal, where he locked horns with friend and rival Ott Tänak. Only this time, Ogier didn’t have to rely solely on guile to get the job done. While it was Tänak and Hyundai who had a pace advantage three weeks ago, Ogier and Toyota were ahead in Sardinia.
Perhaps of more significance however is what this result means for the complexion of the championship table. Tänak said he was treating Ogier like a championship rival in his approach to Sunday, and on the face of it why wouldn’t he when Ogier is now Evans’ closest challenger in second?
Ogier doesn’t enjoy this narrative, but with an appearance lined up in Greece too – which he insisted to DirtFish on the Sardinia recce was always planned and not a response to recent results – he’s very much in the thick of proceedings right now.
Whether things remain that way will be down to the decision making of Toyota and Ogier himself, certainly not the way Ogier is performing on the stages.
McErlean / Munster trend continues
Neither Josh McErlean nor Grégoire Munster will be proud of their efforts in Sardinia.
In the words of McErlean: “Three cars [retiring in] one stage is a disaster.”
But from what we did see, the trend between the two team-mates from Portugal continued in Sardinia. McErlean is the lesser experienced of the pair, but absolutely had Munster’s number.
SS1 is the only true comparison we can draw as on Saturday and Sunday McErlean opened the road and Munster was second, and there McErlean’s deficit to the leaders was half what Munster’s was – 5.4s off the fastest time compared to 11.2s.
And while their speed couldn’t be compared for the rest of their event, their demeanour appeared quite different with Munster almost sulky at times when he arrived at the stage-end, struggling with boiling brakes and setup experiments.
The factor in Munster’s favor is, like in Portugal, he has less experience of the event (Sardinia) than McErlean; 2025 being his third start compared to McErlean’s fourth.
But three vs four is hardly a major differential, and he had already done the event in a Rally1 car before unlike McErlean. So regardless of what may or may not be said, Munster will be eager to beat his team-mate next time out in Greece and stop this trend continuing.
Rossel squanders his chance
With Oliver Solberg competing but not for points, and Gus Greensmith absent ahead of his wedding this week, Yohan Rossel knew Sardinia was a big opportunity for him to score.
But the championship leader squandered it.
Sensibly playing his way into an event known for its roughness and toughness, the Citroën pilot was second to 2022 WRC2 champion Emil Lindholm before it all went awry on the eighth special stage.
In a 5G impact, Rossel hit a tree and broke a steering arm which forced him out of Saturday – and with no powerstage in WRC2, forced him home without any points too.
The WRC2 title is far too complex to make any major statements about Rossel’s title prospects, but on a weekend where he had a chance to record a menacing high score, using up his dropped score certainly wasn’t the plan.
He wasn’t the only loser from this weekend though. Emil Lindholm was poised to really announce himself in the title fight, but dropped it from the lead three stages from home.
Fourmaux’s weakness hurts him again
Adrien Fourmaux doesn’t have many weaknesses as a rally driver. But one aspect that has been questioned – particularly in Sweden – was his temperament after things had unravelled for him.
His boss, Cyril Abiteboul, was one of those asking questions, and you must imagine they haven’t vanished after Sardinia.
Friday was mega. The Frenchman made good use of his road position to be in the lead scrap with Ogier and Tänak, but a puncture on Saturday’s second stage killed any hopes of a breakthrough WRC win.
Being harsh, you could question Fourmaux’s decision making not to immediately stop and change it – hindsight at least proved that to be the wiser call – but of more concern was how his entire day just capitulated thereafter.
He says his off-piste line over a crest of jumps was in his pacenotes, and it was dust that distracted him and led to him wildly overshooting a junction on the succeeding test. But then he rolled it in the afternoon after losing concentration.
There’s a trend there. When his rally turns, so does Fourmaux’s composure. It’s a weakness he and Hyundai will be keen to address.
