Esapekka Lappi holds a lead of 0.1s over Sebastien Ogier after a Friday showdown that was decided on the day’s final stage. Lappi’s teammate, Thierry Neuville, makes it two Hyundais in the top three but is 18.6s back from Lappi.
The Rally Italia Sardegna started on Thursday with a super special stage blast at Olbia – Cabbu Abbas. It was Lappi that headed the field from M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak with a gap of 0.2s separating the two drivers. Neuville was only half a second behind which made for a good start in the Hyundai camp.
It was Friday though when the action would start to intensify. Three stages made up the first full day, Tantariles and Terranova were the first two, however, the biggest test came from the 49.9km Monte Lerno – Sa Conchedda which includes the fan favourite ‘Micky’s Jump’.
Ogier and Lappi took to the front immediately in the morning running, with the two trading tenths of a second between each other before they headed to the final stage of the morning. At the giant Monte Lerno – Sa Conchedda test, Ogier pulled out a 16.6s gap to the Finn before service. As Lappi got into a rhythm though, the Hyundai man started to reel in the Frenchman and over the repeated stages, Lappi would head Ogier by just 0.1!
“There was no need to push harder, one-tenth is enough!” Said Lappi. “I’m glad to be at the finish, that was quite a tricky stage and we got a slow left rear puncture as well, so that started to disturb it a bit. But we are here, everything is ok and we are looking forward to tomorrow.”
Neuville thought to third as the Belgian was trying to work around an intermittent handbrake issue. Neuville was down in sixth in the morning but found more traction as others hit issues to make it two Hyundais in the podium positions.
Late rain conditions on the final stage aided Kalle Rovanpera to move up to fourth. The reigning champion was in seventh but being first on the road on the final stage of the day was a benefit unlike what it had been for most of the day.
Behind Rovanpera was teammate Takamoto Katsuta. The Japanese driver was having a better time than past rallies this season, however, Katsuta hit a rock which cost him 20s in the morning loop but remained in the top five.
Elfyn Evans had to overcome a puncture 7km from the end of Monte Lerno which meant that he was 18.2s behind Katsuta at the end of the day but stayed ahead of Ott Tanak who was trying to recover after a water pump failure.
Pierre-Louis Loubet was the biggest scalp claimed on Friday, the Frenchman was running well in third place but collected a three-minute time penalty when he couldn’t get any gears selected before the start of SS5. With the issue fixed though, Loubet’s rally didn’t go much further as he would get caught in a ditch and beached his car.
WRC2 is currently headed by Sam Pajari followed by Adrien Fourmaux and Emil Lindholm.
Standings after Friday
- Lappi 1hr 31min 48.8s
- Ogier +0.1s
- Neuville +18.6s
- Rovanpera +46.1s
- Katsuta +47.4s
- Evans +1min 5.6s
