SORDO STARS AS HYUNDAI DEFEATS TOYOTA
The Spanish supersub took his second win in Italy, while Thierry Neuville brought himself back into title contention with the runner-up spot
MCKLEIN
Four months later than planned, Rally Italia Sardegna played host as the sixth round of this year’s World Rally Championship. Dani Sordo, Hyundai’s ‘supersub’ for the weekend, took a thoroughly deserved victory; his third career WRC win and the second in his last two visits to Sardinia. As the WRC continues to proceed cautiously out of lockdown, this final gravel round on the 2020 schedule felt much more like a full WRC event than either of the preceding events in Turkey or Estonia. Spectators and ceremonial events may have been absent (officially at least), but six timed stages on the opening day felt like business as usual.
Four of the six would be complete before the day’s service halt, which meant that many crews took a measured approach early on. Championship leader Elfyn
Evans had the job of running first on the road, thereby doing the lion’s share of sweeping the loosest sand and gravel for everyone else’s benefit. He was followed by his six-time champion Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier. The third Toyota driver, Kalle Rovanpera, was also circumspect after his mechanics had worked through the night to rebuild his Yaris after a roll at the end of Thursday’s shakedown stage. The Hyundai i20s of reigning drivers’ champion Ott Tanak and perennial runner-up Thierry Neuville were also running well within themselves.
This left the M-sport Ford Fiestas of Esapekka Lappi and Teemu Suninen to claim the spotlight early on. Both
Finns have expressed frustration in recent weeks as the heavy financial toll of COVID-19 upon M-sport has affected the team’s progress. Suitable attitude adjustment was enforced by team principal Richard Millener prior to the start of the rally and it paid off with dramatic effect. Lappi came through the 12km (7.5-mile) opening stage a full second in front of Evans. And his benchmark was immediately smashed by Suninen, a
Suninen’s searing pace and initial lead sparked expletive-laden celebration previous winner in Sardinia in both
WRC3 and WRC2 and runner-up overall in 2019. He took a colossal 12.4s lead and then treated the world to an expletive-laden celebration.
“That was probably the best comment we’ve ever heard, I reckon,” Millener enthused. “Not the swearing, the other bit about ‘sending it’. I think he’s definitely been hanging around English people too long!”
M-sport’s jubilation was tempered on the next stage, however, when Lappi’s
Fiesta coasted to a halt in a cloud of steam. Its engine had boiled dry and would prove too badly damaged to restart the event.
There was no cloud of steam around Tanak’s Hyundai, but something was clearly amiss and he would lose roughly half a minute per stage for the morning loop.
What ailed him nobody was saying, least of all the Estonian. As his chances ebbed away, Tanak sat in grimacing silence rather than discuss the issue even with co-driver Martin Jarveoja, lest an enterprising countryman translate his words and post them on social media.
Undoubtedly the happiest man on the morning loop was Sordo, who took full advantage of starting each stage at the back of the pack and benefited from a much cleaner road surface as a result.
The Spaniard also discovered that he had gone the right way with his tyre choice of mediums all round with just one spare, the same as the Toyota drivers.
Sordo won the second stage, came third behind the Toyotas on the third, and then won the final stage of the opening loop to sweep past Suninen. After the break, Sordo won both of the day’s remaining stages and took a 17.4s advantage from Suninen overnight. Neuville sat unhappy in third, penalised by the weight of a second spare tyre – and his car stalling twice on the fifth stage.
A feverish battle had broken out between Neuville and Ogier, who were separated by just 0.8s after the entire first day’s running. If anything Ogier was even less happy than his Belgian rival, directing his frustration towards the road order and his displeasure towards gravel sweeping. “It’s just ridiculous but nothing new,” he snapped. “Rally is amateur sport; it will stay amateur sport. It cannot be managed in a professional way.”