Estonian Ott Tänak (Hyundai) confirmed his domination on the tracks of Sardinia to win his first rally of the year on Sunday and return to third place in the World Championship (WRC) still led by the inaccessible Kalle Rovanperä, 5th in Italy.
By winning nine of the eighteen stages contested since Thursday (two were canceled on Friday and one interrupted on Saturday), the 2019 Estonian world champion has exceeded the milestone of 300 stages won in his career and above all crushed the competition.
As comfortable at the wheel of his Hyundai on the narrow tracks as on the tricky dirt bumps that make the reputation of the Sardinian event, Tänak managed perfectly, without particularly forcing but without showing any weaknesses.
After a perfect Saturday (six wins in seven specials), he continued on Sunday in the Alghero region (north-west of the island).
Already a winner in Sardinia in 2017, he pocketed two of the four Sunday specials (SS18 and SS20) against resigned rivals and awaiting the “Power stage” (SS21) offering additional points to the first five in this final 7.1 stopwatch km.
Besides his driving, Tänak, the only one to have won a world championship in the last 18 years apart from the French ogres Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier, has also had a bit of success.
On Friday, the last two stages had been canceled when he had a transmission problem which could have lost him time, and on Saturday he took advantage of the early exit from the track by Finnish leader Esapekka Lappi.
With his first victory since February 2021 (15th rally success), Tänak returns to third place in the World Championship at the end of this fifth round (out of 13).
Nice weekend for Loubet
The Estonian even thought he could take second place from Thierry Neuville (Hyundai), who had a difficult weekend between mechanical problems on Friday and retirement on Saturday.
But the Belgian saved his place as runner-up by winning the “Power stage”, thus returning from Sardinia despite everything with five points, which allows him to keep three on Tänak in the championship.
A championship more than ever dominated by Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota), not wildly at ease on the slippery ground of Sardinia. But in the absence of a fourth success in a row, after winning in Sweden, Croatia and Portugal, the young Finn has preserved a useful 5th place which allows him to increase his lead over Neuville to 55 points.
“Taking more points than Thierry is the most important thing,” he summed up.
Irishman Craig Breen (Ford) and Spaniard Dani Sordo (Hyundai) engaged in a good duel to complete in this order a podium from which Toyota is excluded for the first time this season.
The other leader of the weekend was the French Pierre-Louis Loubet, very consistent during the three days to win the best ranking of his career in the WRC (4th).
The winner of the lower WRC2 category in 2019 remained in contact with the leading trio without error of concentration. Unlike his compatriot and Ford team-mate Adrien Fourmaux who, after a fine rally until Saturday evening, made a mistake during the last special of the day when he was 5th, and was unable to resume on Sunday.
During the next round, two other Frenchmen will be at the heart of the attention: Ogier and Loeb, engaged only in certain events, are expected in Kenya (June 23-26).