Rally Italia Sardegna 2023 restarted this morning with SS8, the 16.28 km Coiluna – Loelle and with completely different weather than yesterday. No rain, but a beautiful sun to kiss the cars that entered the special even though the surface still had some muddy sections.
Yesterday ended with a twist, namely the first position obtained in extremis by Esapekka Lappi. The Hyundai Motorsport driver was 1/10 better than Sébastien Ogier.
This morning however, the Toyota Racing driver responded by beating his rival by 1″8. This means that the 8-time world champion is back in the lead at the island event and now has a margin of 1″7 against of the Finnish former teammate.
The special stage ended up instead in the hands of a Thierry Neuville who started strong and determined. The Belgian from Hyundai didn’t push madly to try and manage well 2 of the 5 Soft tires chosen for this lap as they were already used. We remind you that each driver has 8 Soft tires available to cover this weekend’s entire event.
Neuville beat Ogier by 1″1 and Kalle Rovanpera by 1″3. Lappi, fourth, contained the gap to 2″9, while all the others suffered very heavy gaps starting from Elfyn Evans, fifth but at 9″5. We also recall that M-Sport did not restart Pierre-Louis Loubet today due to the excessive damage caused by the Frenchman to his Ford Puma Rally1 yesterday.
Worth noting is an error by Takamoto Katsuta made in the last sector of the special: having reached a ford, the Japanese took the wrong approach and, probably, also the trajectory, ending up in it with the nose of his GR Yaris Rally1.
The Japanese car suffered cosmetic damage to the front, but also to some engine components (probably the turbo). The dashboard of the Yaris didn’t report any alarms, but Takamoto then had just 3 gears out of 5 available and, above all, he found himself without power until the finish line of the stage.
As for the WRC2, excellent time by Andreas Mikkelsen with the Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 of the TokSport team. The Norwegian started strong to recover the ground that separates him first from the second place occupied by Adrien Fourmaux (4″7 away) and then from the first place in the category still in the hands of his teammate Sami Pajari.
Rally Italia Sardegna – WRC 2023 – Classification after SS8
Pos. Pilota/navigatore Vettura Tempo/distacco 1 Ogier/Landais Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 1h41’51”6 2 Lappi/Ferm Hyundai 20 N Rally2 +1″7 3 Neuville/Wydaeghe Hyundai 20 N Rally2 +17″4 4 Rovanpera/Halttunen Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 +46″2 5 Evans/Martin Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 +1’13″9 6 Katsuta/Johnston Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 +1’16″7 7 Tanak/Jarveoja Ford Puma Rally1 +1’18″8 8 Pajari/ Malkonen Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 +4’19″1 9 Fourmaux/Coria Ford Fiesta Rally2 +4’25″1 10 Mikkelsen/Erissen Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 +4’29″8
