The third and final day of Rally Italia Sardegna has come to a close. Ott Tänak took home the event win barely beating out Ogier.
SS13, Cala Flumini 1
Thierry Neuville kicked off the final day with a stage win. As the Belgian set a time 4.6 seconds faster than Ott Tänak to top the stage and take an early lead in the Sunday standings. Elfyn Evans was third fastest on the stage, 6.1 seconds slower than Neuville and 1.5 seconds slower than Tänak. Sebastien Ogier finished fourth fastest on the stage, 2.5 seconds slower than Evans. Dani Sordo rounded out the top five on the stage, finishing 5.6 seconds slower than Ogier. No drivers reported any issues on the stage.
SS14, Sassari-Argentiera 1
Thierry Neuville also took home the stage win on the fourteenth stage of Rally Italia Sardegna 2024. With a time 0.8 seconds faster than Ott Tänak. Takamoto Katsuta finished third fastest on the stage, 2.6 seconds slower than Neuville and 1.8 seconds slower than Tänak. Dani Sordo set the fourth fastest time on the stage, 1.8 seconds slower than Katsuta. Elfyn Evans rounded out the top five on the stage, 0.1 seconds slower than Sordo.
SS14, Cala Flumini 2
Ott Tänak took home the stage win on the events penultimate stage. As the Estonian set a time 0.4 seconds faster than Sebastien Ogier to win the stage. Elfyn Evans finished third fastest on the stage, 2.3 seconds slower than Tänak, and 1.9 seconds slower than Ogier. Thierry Neuville was fourth fastest on the stage, 2.9 seconds slower than Evans. Dani Sordo rounded out the top five times on the stage, finishing 4.3 seconds slower than Neuville.
SS16, Sassari-Argentiera 2
Thierry Neuville took home the final stage win of Rally Italia Sardegna 2024. With a time 2.3 seconds faster than Ott Tänak to top the Powerstage and Sunday standings. Elfyn Evans was third fastest on the stage, 6.4 seconds slower than Neuville and 4.1 seconds slower than Tänak. Adrien Fourmaux tied for fourth fastest on the stage, with both finishing 0.3 seconds slower than Evans.
Championship Rundown
Thierry Neuville still holds onto the championship lead after a less-than-desirable Rally Italia Sardegna 2024 for the Belgian. Neuville managed to take home 12 points from the event. Ott Tänak and Elfyn Evans sit tied for second overall. With both sitting just 18 points behind Neuville. Sébastien Ogier moves up to fourth in the championship, 12 points behind Tänak and Evans. Adrien Fourmaux drops to fifth and rounds out the top five in the championship sitting 18 points behind Ogier.
Team Quotes
Hyundai Shell Mobis
Cyril Abiteboul – Team Principal
“It is obviously a very emotional finish here today. It looked like the win would once again escape from our grasp after Ott wisely decided to play it safe yesterday. However, today’s result showed that you can also combine a smart approach to a rally with strong skills and the right momentum at the perfect time, resulting in a great win. It is a fantastic moment for him in his return to the team. This is a strong step in the championship, and an excellent team result with Dani on the podium. He did exactly what we expected of him for the team this weekend and it’s great to see them both from on that podium, underscoring our competitiveness. Finally, Thierry has once again demonstrated his very commanding speed in any road position, including today when the motivation level was very high to make up for the loss and disappointment of yesterday. Obviously, we need to make sure that mistakes are as limited as possible as we expect this championship to continue to be incredibly competitive until the very end. There is even more to celebrate today, with our cars locking out the TCR class podium at the Nürburgring 24 Hours – we send our congratulations to our colleagues there for a phenomenal result.”
Ott Tänak – 1st Overall
“I’m feeling so many emotions right now. I’m very sorry for Seb to lose a win like this, it is cruel. I have been in the exactly the same position having a ‘safe’ victory taken away from me a couple of years ago. It’s been a tough weekend but it is great to finish with such a strong result. Let’s see what the next rallies will bring; we’re moving into the second half of the season and we’re definitely in the game. Now we have some fast rallies which I normally looking forward to, but I was supposed to enjoy yesterday afternoon as well but it was just not going to plan. Hopefully, we can find a good feeling in the car in our next events.”
Dani Sordo – 3rd Overall
“It wasn’t the easiest of days; Elfyn was having a good run and making good progress, so he was pushing us to the very end. In the final stage, I just tried to survive, it was completely destroyed and very hard on the car. We finish on the podium, which makes me very happy. It has been a joy to be back in the Hyundai i20 N Rally1 Hybrid for these two events, which I enjoy so much, and I am pleased to be able to bring home a great result for the team. It was important for us to have a good finish and help the team in such a close battle for the manufacturers’ championship.”
Thierry Neuville – 41st Overall [SR]
“We did the job we needed to do today, but we are obviously frustrated with what happened yesterday. We were clearly managing the conditions, the speed was good and we felt comfortable – and fast. I just lost focus for a fraction of a second, and there was no way to continue. I’m not very proud of the weekend as a whole but I take pride in our performance on Friday and today, as well as in the team for a great result today. Now we turn to Poland, where I have won before – we have shown great improvements last year in Estonia and Finland, so I am looking forward to it.”
Toyota Gazoo Racing
Akio Toyoda – TGR-WRT Chairman
“The surface in Sardinia is very demanding, and it always gives challenges to our team and cars. TGR has won Sardinia only once so far when Seb got the victory in 2021. Seb and Vincent were doing really well on this harsh and demanding event, but they missed out at the very last moment on the Power Stage. The gap of 0.2 seconds is so small and disappointing, but this is sport. Our team all hate to lose. We will turn this frustration into strength and aim for the next victory.
P.S. to Ott
I was on-site in Rally Sardinia 2019 and following your performance. You made up for the disappointment of that Power Stage this time. Congratulations!”
Jari-Matti Latvala – Team Principal
“We are of course very disappointed to miss out on the victory in this way. This final stage in Sardinia has been very dramatic in the past and unfortunately, it’s not the first time that we have experienced late drama here, because it reminds us of what happened back in 2019 when we were leading with Ott until the last stage. This event has not always been kind to us, but it was looking very good for Seb and we thought we could take another victory together here. The only positive is that it didn’t affect the points so much for us. A moment like this can be difficult to digest, and we hate to lose, but we also never lose our fighting spirit and we will come back to fight again on the next event in Poland.”
Sébastien Ogier – 2nd Overall
“We knew it could be tough today with some stages that are very rough and maybe not the most suited to us. Still, I think we were doing a good enough job to secure the win, but unfortunately, we started to lose tyre pressure three kilometres from the end. The conditions were very extreme in this Power Stage, even worse than we have seen there before, and I don’t think there was much that I could have done differently. It’s something that’s never easy to take, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t really change anything in terms of the overall points for the team. I think I can still be happy with the weekend I’ve done, and sometimes motorsport just doesn’t go your way. We will come back and try to keep up this level of performance we’ve had.”
Elfyn Evans – 4th Overall
“It’s been a very difficult weekend for us but today was a bit better. I would say the feeling was definitely improved and I think the times and the points that we got from the day showed that. Still, it’s clear looking at the weekend overall that we still have a lot of work to do to improve in rallies with conditions like this one. The good news is that the characteristics now change to something quite different for the next three rallies. We know the car can be strong on fast rallies like those and it will be important to prepare as best we can and try to find confidence early.”
Takamoto Katsuta – 35th Overall
“Today my target was to get some points. We knew it would be difficult with our starting position, and the first stage was not good because we had a lot of dust from the car in front and could not see so much. We took some points but of course, I wanted more. Things were working well earlier in the rally, everything was under control and then unfortunately we had the technical issue. But it was a demanding rally for the cars and sometimes things like this can happen: I just need to accept it and move forward to the next rally.”
M-Sport Ford
Richard Millener – Team Principal
“We knew it was always going to be hard to continue our good run here in Sardinia, one of the toughest events of the European part of the WRC, but dispute not getting the result we wanted, we can still be happy with the speed Adrien and Alex showed on many of the event stages. I also want to congratulate Gregoire and Louis on their best result to date in the WRC – a really great achievement for them both and secures them eight championship points. We now look towards three fast rallies in a row where we are determined to get back to chasing the podium places.”
Grégoire Munster – 5th Overall
“I’m just happy we had a trouble free event, and at the end, we reached our best result in the WRC, so we’re very happy with this. There’s still plenty of work to do and pace to find but we’re always going in the right direction. Especially seeing us get our fourth fastest time in SS3, we now need to build on that and keep the momentum going into the next few events.”
Adrien Fourmuax – 15th Overall
“I think we can be quite positive with the pace we showed this weekend, on Friday and Saturday especially. It’s a shame what happened with the electronic issue on Friday, but we are working on these things for the future. On Sunday, it was good to get some extra points for the Power Stage, even if we wanted more from the daily standings on Super Sunday. We need to focus a bit on the slower corners, to get the car more agile, but this is very specific to Sardinia. Overall I have been happy with the car and now we need to focus on the upcoming smooth gravel rallies.”
