Italy WRC: Sordo holds off Neuville for Hyundai 1-2

Sordo’s cameo in the third Hyundai entry gave a huge fillip to his employers’ chances in the manufacturers’ title race, while the battle for the drivers’ title is shaping up to be a four-way fight towards the very final stage of the year.

Cooler conditions greeted the runners on Sunday morning, an overcast sky dropping ambient temperatures by 10C from the first two days. A loop of just two stages awaited, 14.06 km Cala Flumini and 6.89 km Sassari, which was to be run twice through the day.

Toyota’s six-time world champion Sebastien Ogier had done enough on Saturday’s final stages to split the Hyundais of leader Sordo and Neuville. Ogier pipped Neuville to win the first stage of the day by two tenths of a second, while Sordo struggled and dropped 12.1s.

Championship leader Elfyn Evans (Toyota) was 4.8s further back but he did enough to safeguard his fourth place from attack by M-Sport’s Teemu Suninen.

Neuville lit the blue touch paper on the second stage, reclaiming 1.6s from Ogier before the service halt. When the action restarted, the Frenchman then took back those lost 1.6s while Sordo struggled again, allowing his overall lead – which had been as high as 38s – to erode to just 9.2s.

The second run through the beachside stage at Sassari would seal the result, and with it would come the bonus Power Stage points for the top five times. This was the moment in which defending champion Ott Tanak played his joker to perfection.

After his Hyundai lost two minutes due to unspecified technical difficulties on the first day, Tanak could finish no higher than sixth overall.

Tanak set an unbeatable Power Stage time to claim five extra points that keep him in the title race with two events remaining. Neuville went faster on the split times but then began bouncing off the scenery in his rush to get to the finish.

Ogier was 3.4s slower than Tanak and handed second place overall back to Neuville.

Sordo was the last man into the stage and he didn’t challenge the fastest times, but did enough to claim his second consecutive victory in Sardinia by 5.1s.

In WRC2, Sweden’s Pontus Tidemand turned the championship tide in his favour with another cautious outing in his Skoda Fabia.

In the WRC point standings, Evans remains 14 points clear of Toyota teammate Ogier as the series moves to asphalt rallies for the remainder of the schedule. Neuville has climbed up to third, 10 points further back, with Tanak hanging on right behind him.

Rally results:

Cla	#	Driver/Codriver	Car	Class	Total Time	Gap
1	6	Dani Sordo Carlos del Barrio	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	RC1	2:41'37.500
2	11	Thierry Neuville Nicolas Gilsoul	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	RC1	2:41'42.600	5.100
3	17	Sébastien Ogier Julien Ingrassia	Toyota Yaris WRC	RC1	2:41'43.600	6.100
4	33	Elfyn Evans Scott Martin	Toyota Yaris WRC	RC1	2:42'39.800	1'02.300
5	3	Teemu Suninen Jarmo Lehtinen	Ford Fiesta WRC	RC1	2:43'11.400	1'33.900
6	8	Ott Tanak Martin Jarveoja	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	RC1	2:44'05.000	2'27.500
7	7	Pierre-Louis Loubet Vincent Landais	Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC	RC1	2:46'21.300	4'43.800
8	30	Jari Huttunen Mikko Lukka	Hyundai i20 R5	RC2	2:50'19.200	8'41.700
9	31	Kajetan Kajetanowicz Maciek Szczepaniak	Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo	RC2	2:51'40.400	10'02.900
10	23	Pontus Tidemand Patrik Barth	Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo	RC2	2:51'58.400	10'20.900
View full results