WORLD RALLY
2008 Rally Sardinia
The World Rally Championship (WRC) returns to Europe this weekend with the Italian event that is held on the popular holiday destination island of Sardinia.
Day One
The first stage today saw Jari-Matti Latvala set off on a searing pace leading from Dani Sordo by 7 seconds. In third was local star Gigi Galli at 7.4 behind then Sebastien Loeb at 7.8 followed by the young Norwegian privateer Andreas Mikkelsen. Championship leader Mikko Hirvonen was 16 seconds behind his team-mate and was eighth.
On the second stage it was a Citroen 1-2 with Loeb then Sordo and the gap was eighteen seconds. Latvala was caught out the 38.55 kilometre test Crastazza and punctured the left rear tyre. After this problem Latvala dropped over a minute and a half. After a promising start Mikkelsen rolled out of contention on this test.
Stage 3 was the start of Latvala’s fightback and he came in second 4.4 seconds behind Loeb and again Italian favourite Galli was third with Sordo in fourth.
Hirvonen was having a hard time starting first on the road and stated “This morning the roads were really slippery and I couldn't push any harder. I'm not sure if I was losing time because I was cleaning the loose gravel, or because I was breaking the damp surface and the cars behind had better grip.It was a strange day.”
The fourth stage, which had taken the drivers beyond the halfway stage of the day witnessed probably the most popular result with Gigi Galli winning the stage. In second again was Latvala then Petter Solberg followed by Sordo, and then Hirvonen and Loeb shared the same time.
The final two stages of the day saw both Loeb and Latvala setting the fastest times on 5 and 6 respectively. Latvala was second fastest and again Galli was third. On 6 Latvala was 2.5 seconds quicker than Loeb and 3.6 seconds faster Galli who capped off an impressive end to day 1.
The overall leaderboard makes good reading for Citroen after a somewhat disappointing last round in Jordan with their drivers in first and second positions.
“Looking at tonight's leaderboard, I am delighted with the work put in by everyone at Citroën Sport. The speed of both our crews confirms what we saw in Jordan, and the work of our technical staff to adapt the C4 to its Pirelli tyres has borne fruit.” smiled Olivier Quesnel head of Citroen Sport.
Solberg capped off an impressive day with third on the leaderboard and said: "This morning I wasn't so comfortable but this afternoon was much better and I was really able to push. The team have been working hard and things are going well. A podium would be very, very good but there's so many things happening on this rally.”
| 1 Sebastien Loeb | Citroen C4 | 1h 31m 27.6s |
| 2 Dani Sordo | Citroen C4 | + 35.7s |
| 3 Petter Solberg | Subaru Impreza | + 53.8s |
| 4 Mikko Hirvonen | Ford Focus | + 58.9s |
| Chris Atkinson | Subaru Impreza | + 1m 9s |
| 6 Gigi Galli | Ford Focus | + 1m 12.3s |
| 7 Jari-Matti Latvala | Ford Focus | + 1m 31.1s |
| 8 Henning Solberg | Ford Focus | + 1m 52.5s |
| 9 Urmo Aava | Citroen C4 | + 2m 19.8s |
| 10 Toni Gardemeister | Suzuki SX4 | + 2m 22.9s |
Day Two
The second day of competition on the idyllic island of Sardinia got under way and it was Latvala who claimed the honours going fastest by 8.4 seconds ahead of team-mate Hirvonen with Galli third and Loeb fourth. Solberg dropped from third on this stage.
On stage 8 it was again Latvala from Hirvonen and stage 9 saw the same pattern with Loeb clearly struggling as he was running first on the road and clearing the loose gravel. Gigi Galli had a spin in this morning’s test, which cost him some time. Solberg’s fine run was over as he stopped to change a puncture and was now down to tenth position.
Latvala and Hirvonen were the top two on the next brace of stages with Loeb losing around 20 seconds and his team-mate Sordo was also having a torrid time as he dropped over a minute on the four stages which meant his overall position was fourth but was now only 15 seconds ahead of Galli.
The final two stages saw the time sheets again topped by the Ford pair of Latvala and Hirvonen which meant that after 12 stages the two drivers could not be separated on time. On the penultimate stage of the day, the Suzuki of Toni Gardemeister retired with broken rear suspension and this was the only major retirement of the day.
The reaction from Latvala was that “I was on the limit all day and when I woke up I could not have imagined taking a minute back from Loeb. Maximum attack, my road position and a perfect car enabled me to do that. I was following Loeb's split times during the stages, not Mikko's, because that was whom I was watching. My plan was solely to recover the time that I lost yesterday when I punctured.”
Hirvonen said “My position tomorrow is better than Loeb and Jari-Matti, and Seb will need to drive flat out as he will be clearing the road for us. I didn't think first on the road would be so bad here, but I struggled yesterday and Loeb did the same today. He has a 29second lead and that's still a big gap but we have a chance tomorrow. Much will depend on whether it is wet or dry.”
The official reaction from the Citroen team was that running first and second on the road had compromised their speed on day 2 with the rain that had fallen the night before insufficient to dramatically change the nature of the surface and Loeb stated that “We'll be first on the road again so there's every chance we will see the same scenario as yesterday…”
| 1 Sebastien Loeb | Citroen C4 | 2h 59m 21.5s |
| 2 Jari-Matti Latvala | Ford Focus | + 29.4s |
| 3 Mikko Hirvonen | Ford Focus | + 29.4s |
| 4 Gigi Galli | Ford Focus | + 1m 17.1s |
| 5 Dani Sordo | Citroen C4 | + 1m 31.3s |
| 6 Chris Atkinson | Subaru Impreza | + 2m 42.1s |
| 7 Henning Solberg | Ford Focus | + 4m 29s |
| 8 Urmo Aava | Citroen C4 | + 4m 34.5s |
| 9 Per-Gunnar Andersson | Suzuki SX4 | + 5m 45.9s |
| 10 Petter Solberg | Subaru Impreza | + 7m 29.2s |
Day Three
The day began with stage 13 and it was Hirvonen who was fastest from team-mate Latvala by 5.1 seconds. Rally leader Loeb was third only 10 seconds back, and fourth was local hero Galli. Stage 14 threw up a minor surprise with Loeb fastest by 3.9 seconds ahead of Hirvonen given that Loeb was still running first on the road.
Loeb said: “We gave it everything we had on SS14. We put off our braking to the last possible moment and profited from the wider, faster road which probably had less surface gravel.”
Stage 15 saw Latvala claim his first fastest stage of the day and his ninth overall for the rally. The gap to second placed Hirvonen was 2.7 seconds with Galli third at 9.3 seconds only one tenth ahead of Loeb over the stage. The penultimate stage saw Loeb hold a lead of over sixteen seconds over Hirvonen but this was cut at the end of the test by 3.3 seconds.
Hirvonen said: “At one point I was worried I wouldn't make the finish. This afternoon I started to go flat out to try to take time from Loeb, but I realised it wasn't going to happen so I decided not to take any more risks and dropped my pace.”
Team-mate Latvala said “On Friday I would have been happy to finish in the top five, so third is fantastic and gives me a big confidence boost. If I hadn't made the mistake, who knows what the outcome might have been” but also said “Mikko won the fight on the morning stages and second belonged to him” Subaru World Rally Team Principal David Richards said “It's been a disappointing rally but in spite of the setbacks both Chris and the team retain third place in the championship. We must now focus all our attention on ensuring that we arrive in Greece with an improved setup for the conditions we are likely to encounter there.”
The final stage of the day saw Latvala record his tenth fastest stage time of the rally by 1.9 seconds from Petter Solberg. Third was Hirvonen. Local ace Galli capped an impressive drive finishing fourth overall and Suzuki managed to gain the final manufacturers point with Per-Gunnar Andersson coming home in ninth.
However the main story of the rally was a brilliant drive from Loeb as he claimed a record 40th rally win that would in some way erase the disappointment from the previous round in Jordan.
Final Standings
| 1 Sebastien Loeb | Citroen C4 | 3h 57m 17.2s |
| 2 Mikko Hirvonen | Ford Focus | + 10.6s |
| 3 Jari-Matti Latvala | Ford Focus | + 15.3s |
| 4 Gigi Galli | Ford Focus | + 1m 42.5s |
| 5 Dani Sordo | Citroen C4 | + 2m 5.6s |
| 6 Chris Atkinson | Subaru Impreza | + 5m 8.6s |
| 7 Henning Solberg | Ford Focus | + 6m 1s |
| 8 Urmo Aava | Citroen C4 | + 6m 21.3s |
| 9 Per-Gunnar Andersson | Suzuki SX4 | + 7m 48.7s |
| 10 Petter Solberg | Subaru Impreza | + 9m 41s |
Ciarán McBride
Thanks to Ford, Citroen and Subaru World Rally Teams for pictures
All results are subject to FIA approval.