Sebastian Ogier claimed his fourth WRC round of the season with his Rally Italia Sardegna victory and also winning the final Live Power Stage round for Team Volkswagen Motorsport.
Hyundai Motorsport’s Hayden Paddon put up a massive challenge for Ogier, but the reigning champion enjoyed a comfortable lead of 3min 05.3 seconds over the New Zealander who produced the surprise of the rally by heading the world champion for almost two days.
The 2nd spot on the podium for Paddon was a career best for the Hyundai i20 rally car driver after facing problems when he spun and later hit a rock and damaged his gearbox. Belgium’s Thierry Neuville finished in 3rd 4min 22.5 seconds behind the leader to stand with two Hyundai team rally cars along side Ogier’s Volkswagen Polo R.
Ogier was the only frontrunner to avoid major problems as the rocky roads took a heavy toll. He now leads the championship by 66 points from Citroën’s Mads Østberg, with seven of the 13 rounds still to be held.
After his Victory Sebastian Ogier said; "Hayden did a great job and deserves his podium, I didn’t expect this kind of result here. It was very difficult to open the road but the times got better and better. Everything was perfect all weekend, from the car to the weather forecasts.”
“We still had some damage from the impact yesterday so we were lucky to get here,” Paddon said after the final stage. “I’m very relieved, it was a massive weekend but there’s more to come yet,” he promised.
Neuville climbed to third on Sunday after Østberg went off the road in the opening stage and damaged his DS 3’s brakes. He limped through the final three tests, falling behind both Neuville and Elfyn Evans but holding off Jari-Matti Latvala.
Latvala threw everything at his attempt to overhaul Østberg, but fell 16.6sec short and settled for sixth in another Polo R. The leaderboard was completed by WRC 2 trio Yurii Protasov, Paolo Andreucci and Jan Kopecky, and Khalid Al Qassimi.
The 7th round of the championship is the all-gravel LOTOS 72nd Rally Poland which is based in Mikolajki on July 2 - 5.
Marelli, a global technology partner to the automotive industry, will present at Auto Shanghai 2025 its technology based on a strategic platform approach, which streamlines hardware development, enabl...
Nissan announced it will launch its next generation Pro PILOT technology from fiscal year 2027. The system, featuring Nissan Ground Truth Perception technology with next-generation Lidar and Wayve AI ...
Karcher India has launched the eco!Booster, an advanced cleaning accessory that delivers 50% higher efficiency than standard flat jet nozzles.