Rally Italia Sardegna: Day 2
Ogier climbs to second place in the Toyota Yaris WRC
Sébastien Ogier surged into second place heading into the final day of Rally Italia Sardegna after he won four of Saturday’s six stages in the Toyota Yaris WRC.
During the morning loop of four stages, Ogier won both passes over the famous Monte Lerno test as he moved up into the podium positions. He was then also fastest over both of the afternoon stages to snatch second place overall at the end of the day, taking an advantage of 1.5 seconds into Sunday over his third-placed rival.
No longer having to run first on the road as championship leader as he did on Friday, Elfyn Evans could also compete for the leading times and moved up from fifth to fourth overall, ending the day with a margin of 8.5 seconds on the driver behind him.
Kalle Rovanperä crashed out of the rally on the second stage of the morning when he ran wide and struck two trees with the rear of the car. The damage was too significant for him to restart on Sunday. It’s the first retirement of the young Finn’s rookie season after he finished all five previous rounds inside the top five.
Quotes:
Tommi Mäkinen (Team Principal)
“It’s a very exciting battle for the podium positions going into the final day. It’s not easy to be sat in service following it – I’m sure it is probably easier for the drivers in the cars! Seb did some great times today and we have our fingers crossed for tomorrow. Elfyn is also in a good position after the disadvantage he had yesterday running first on the road. Unfortunately for Kalle it has not been such a clean weekend. After a service mistake yesterday that already made his rally difficult, he was trying to continue today but made a very small mistake in a really narrow place. But that’s rallying and he is learning very quickly.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“I feel pretty happy with my day today, winning four stages out of six. Unfortunately the two other stages were not so good and were a bit costly in terms of time: On the first pass I was not on the limit enough and on the second one I really tried harder but I stalled the engine in a hairpin and lost some seconds. But overall it’s still a positive day. Tomorrow we’re going to fight for second place and put the pressure on the leader until the end. You never know what can happen on these tricky stages.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“Overall the morning loop wasn’t bad. For the most part I was driving pretty well. I just gave away too much time in SS9, being a bit too careful and too focused on being smooth and not pushing hard enough. Then in the first stage of the afternoon I tried to push a bit more and ended up going slower, so in the final stage I just kept it clean. Now we need to keep hold of fourth tomorrow, that will be key. It’s not going to be possible to catch the guys in front on pace alone on such short stages, but we have to keep going until the end.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“On the second stage of the day, we went a bit wide in the final part of the stage: It was a narrow section where we had some things to avoid on the inside. We hit a tree on the outside and then the impact sent us into a second tree, and the damage was too much for us to restart tomorrow. It was clearly not our weekend, starting already from the shakedown. We had a bit of bad luck also yesterday which was not our fault, but today was my mistake. It’s been a tricky weekend.”
End of day two (Saturday):
1 Dani Sordo/Carlos del Barrio (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) 2h14m35.5s
2 Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Toyota Yaris WRC) +27.4s
3 Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +28.9s
4 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota Yaris WRC) +58.4s
5 Teemu Suninen/Jarmo Lehtinen (Ford Fiesta WRC) +1m06.9s
6 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +2m25.3s
7 Pierre-Louis Loubet/Vincent Landais (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +3m37.0s
8 Jari Huttunen/Mikko Lukka (Hyundai i20 R5) +6m58.7s
9 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Sczecepaniak (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +7m09.2s
10 Pontus Tidemand/Patrik Barth (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +7m48.1s
Retired Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota Yaris WRC)
(Results as of 17:45 on Saturday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
Sunday consists of a pair of stages close to Alghero on Sardinia’s western coast, each run twice: Cala Flumini and Sassari – Argentiera, which will also serve as the rally-ending Power Stage
Press release
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