Dani Sordo increased his lead on Rally Italia Sardegna as he continued to deliver a strong performance on Saturday morning.
The Hyundai driver set the fastest time in SS8 Coiluna-Loelle 1, the morning’s second stage, and completed the loop of four stages with an advantage of 31.6 seconds at the head of the field.
Teemu Suninen began the day in second position in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta but lost the use of his handbrake and faded to fifth place. That opened the door for the championship contenders, with Sébastien Ogier winning both passes of the Monte Lerno test in his Toyota as he moved past Thierry Neuville and into second overall.
Neuville struck back on SS10 with the fastest time to get back into second place, three second ahead of Ogier who reported a stall in one corner on the final test of the loop.
No longer having to run first on the road, championship leader Elfyn Evans showed stronger pace this morning as he moved up into fourth ahead of Suninen, 19.6s behind Ogier.
Gus Greensmith was holding sixth place for M-Sport but failed to start SS10 due to an alternator issue. That gave another position to Ott Tänak as the Hyundai driver progressively recovers from the suspension problem he had on Friday morning.
Tänak had earlier also moved ahead of the privately-entered i20 WRC of Pierre-Louis Loubet.
Kalle Rovanperä crashed out of ninth position on SS8, hitting two trees with the rear of his Toyota.
Pontus Tidemand in 11th overall continues to lead FIA WRC2 over his Toksport WRT Škoda team-mate Eyvind Brynildsen and Ole-Christian Veiby after Adrien Fourmaux stopped on SS9.
Just 0.1s separate Jari Huttunen and Kajetan Kajetanowicz at the front of FIA WRC3, with Oliver Solberg, now in 3rd, 4.9s from the lead after a puncture cost him first place in SS9.
Sweden’s Tom Kristensson now has a comfortable advantage in FIA Junior WRC after rival Sami Pajari stopped in the morning’s first test with a broken driveshaft. He leads Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zaldivar and Latvia’s Mārtiņš Sesks.
