WRC – Sébastien Ogier and Volkswagen untouchable in Sardinia

With the exception of the burst of Thierry Neuville (Ford Fiesta RS WRC), author of two stage scratches this Friday, there were ultimately only ones for the Volkswagens. Sébastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala completely flew through the first stage of the rally of Sardinia, Italy, seventh stage of the WRC. On a playing field that is particularly suitable for the Polo R WRC, the current leader of the Drivers' championship took three scratches, during SS 1, 3 and 6. His Finnish teammate won the 2, 7 and 8th timed sectors. But the latter, author of the best qualifying time and starting from the last privileged place, suffered a puncture at the very start of the first special of the day. He lost almost 2 minutes in the mishap, destroying his chances of doing well at the end of the rally. Suddenly Sébastien Ogier is alone in the world, and on the evening of the first stage is no less than 46??7 ahead of Mikko Hirvonen, the leader of the Citroën clan.

Behind the driver of the chevron brand, we find the impressive Thierry Neuville. In trouble in the morning with his brakes, the Belgian driver from Qatar M-Sport WRT found a set-up to its liking during the afternoon which allowed it to win two special stages and place 3rd in the general classification. In the same team, however, Evgeny Novikov went off very violently during SS2. Having rolled over several times, his car is unrecoverable. His Italian adventure ends here. Mads Ostberg will experience a similar fate during the final ES of the day, without us knowing for the moment whether he will be able to restart during the 2nd stage.

The Sardinia rally resumes this Saturday at 8:06 a.m. via the 19,27 km of SS9, Monte Olia. It will once again be available to follow live and in full on AUTOhebdo.fr, even if the last two special stages of the day could not be broadcast due to a technical problem. We apologize and hope to see many of you for the second and final stage of this weekend.