Toyota's Jari-Matti Latvala headed a damp Thursday morning shakedown at Rally Italia Sardegna, putting his Yaris 0.8 seconds clear of Hayden Paddon’s Hyundai i20.
Latvala put in a time of 1:53.9 on the 3.51km Olmeda test to take his third successive shakedown 'victory' and his hopeful that a more detailed track inspection will avoid a repeat of his Argentina and Portugal mistakes.
"In the recce I used more time than previously. I stopped at some places to throw the stones away and I walked around and looked at the stones," he told the official WRC website.
"I also tried to mark more carefully the bad places or where there was a stone on the ground and rather than going over it, I will go round it.
"We’ll run the car higher which should help with the impacts and I won’t turn so aggressively into corners. There was no time to do any suspension work between Portugal and this rally but the reality is that I’ve been driving too aggressively."
Current championship leader Thierry Neuville was tied third with Esapekka Lappi and Ott Tänak, all 0.9s adrift of Latvala's time.
Meanwhile Sébastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen were both caught out, swiping a rock during their first runs which caused bodywork damage to the co-driver’s side of their cars.
| 1 | Jari-Matti Latvala | Toyota Yaris | 1min 53.9sec |
| 2 | Hayden Paddon | Hyundai i20 | +0.8sec |
| 3= | Thierry Neuville | Hyundai i20 | +0.9sec |
| 3= | Esapekka Lappi | Toyota Yaris | +0.9sec |
| 3= | Ott Tänak | Toyota Yaris | +0.9sec |
| 6 | Sébastien Ogier | Ford Fiesta | +1.4sec |
| 7 | Elfyn Evans | Ford Fiesta | +2.2sec |
| 8 | Teemu Suninen | Ford Fiesta | +2.8sec |
| 9 | Andreas Mikkelsen | Hyundai i20 | +3.2sec |
| 10 | Craig Breen | Citroën C3 | +3.6sec |
