One year on from losing victory on the final stage of Rally Italia Sardegna to Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja, this year, the tables were turned when Ogier claimed his record fifth victory on the Italian island by 7.9 seconds.
The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver went into the final Wolf Power Stage with a comfortable 17.2 second lead over Tanak; however, in the final stage, Ogier ran wide after his car got stuck in a rut at a sharp hairpin and ran off the road, forcing the Frenchman to reverse out, setting only the seventh fastest time.
“In the ruts, I just couldn’t turn the car,” Ogier explained. “There was no speed at all, so I didn’t try to force it and hit it – I preferred to stop and reverse. But yeah, not ideal. Still, it was enough to win.”
The result marked back-to-back wins for the Frenchman following his Rally de Portugal triumph last month, and his third victory of the season from just four starts – propelling him firmly into the title fight.
Behind the dueling Toyota and Hyundai crews, Kalle Rovanperä and Jonne Halttunen stormed through the final 13.7km test 8.1 seconds faster than Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe in their Hyundai i20 N.
Fourth in the overall standings went to Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin, just over five minutes behind Ogier after losing loads of time sweeping the road clean on Friday. The championship leader saw his lead slashed to seventeen points while Ogier moved into second place on the championship leaderboard, one point ahead of Rovanperä.
Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari ended in fifth and seventh respectively, with Oliver Solberg sandwiched between the two GR Yarises. Pajari sustained a damaged rear driveshaft after a spin, dropping from fifth position.
Roberto Dapra (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2) and Kajetan Kajetanowicz (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2) rounded out the top ten.
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