The Rally of Italy-Sardinia has closed its afternoon loop on Saturday in the same way that it already put the finishing touch to its stage on Friday, with some organizational chaos. If SS8 and SS9 had to be canceled due to a ‘Rally2’ fire, SS17 was held in two rounds due to a red flag caused by Adrien Fourmaux’s accident. The restart procedure, as well as the allotted times, do not please everyone. In this scenario, Ott Tänak has consolidated his lead and has a lead of 46 seconds over Craig Breen.
Without intermediate assistance, the evening loop was drawn as a continuity of what was seen in the morning. Ott Tänak conquered the scratch in SS14 to take another step towards victoryfirst with the Hyundai i20 N Rally1. The first special of the afternoon had no more crumbs, nor did SS15. In both cases, Tänak set the tone with a certain solvency, without risks and with a very consistent rhythm. dani deaf finished behind his partner on the first pass through ‘Monte Lerno’, all after losing a few valuable seconds in the passage of water from the previous section.
Ott Tänak closed his particular ‘hat trick’ of fast times in SS16, raising his distance to 46 seconds with Craig Breen. In the second run through ‘Coiluna – Loelle’ the now almost traditional moment of tension for Sordo with the water ford did not occur, but the Spaniard once again lost more than 8 seconds to Breen. As a result of this situation, podium positions were fully defined. Nor was Pierre-Louis Loubet able to get too close to the Cantabrian, so the battle for fifth place seemed the focus of greatest interest.
Focus of interest that became a focus of drama and poor organization in a matter of minutes. Already in SS17, Adrien Fourmaux went long and ended up against the vegetation. The Frenchman’s Ford Puma Rally1 got caught in the trees, spun and ended up in an awkward position blocking the road, which forced to stop the section with a red flag. Dani Sordo was on paper the only driver affected by this accident, riding just behind Fourmaux, but theory and reality are usually different and more so in this rally.
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The restart of the stage occurred with at least one marshal still showing a red flag, causing Craig Breen to lift his foot. In contrast, Ott Tänak did not slow him down until later, when the red flag was shown on the comm system. In the end, the organization in a Solomonic and sloppy decision has converted Kalle Rovanperä’s scratch in time to assign Dani Sordo, Craig Breen and Ott Tänak. As a consequence of this resolution, Ott Tänak sleeps with 46 seconds of rent on Craig Breen.
Dani Sordo occupies a comfortable third position with 25 seconds ahead of Pierre-Louis Loubet, while Kalle Rovanperä has climbed to fifth place after Adrien Fourmaux’s accident. The order remains unchanged, though Jan Solans already reaches ninth position, while Chris Ingram has climbed to tenth. Ahead of both still stands Nikolay Gryazin, driver who leads the WRC2 category and who tops the silver class podium with Solans and Ingram with all four stages remaining on Sunday.
Classification after sS17 of the 19th Rally Italia-Sardinia
The Rally of Italy-Sardinia ends this Saturday (1:38 p.m.) with the celebration of the third stage. Pilots and co-pilots will dispute 39.30 kilometers against the clock.
Photos: Hyundai Motorsport / M-Sport