After the reconnaissance carried out by the drivers and the autograph session held last night in Alghero on the seafront in the presence of many fans, this morning officially kicks off at 9.01 with the Olmedo shakedown and then at 18.08 with the super special of Olbia the 19th edition of the Rally Italia Sardegna .
ALSO ON TV. For fans it will be possible to follow the race on TV on Sky Sport and on RAI Sport. In fact, the super special of Olbia will be broadcast live today from 6 pm, then on Saturday the two passes in Loelle at 1.30 pm and 4 pm, and finally on Sunday the two passes at the Argentiera at 9 and at 12.
Kalle Rovanpera leads the drivers’ standings with 46 points ahead of Thierry Neuville and 68 over Katsuta, while among the brands Toyota has 59 points ahead of Hyundai and 81 points over Ford MSport.
ROUND PIRELLI. Sardinia hosts the home round of the World Rally Championship for Pirelli, a very demanding appointment for the abrasive and rocky roads of the island, a tough test bed for tires to which temperatures higher than expected compared to the season will be added. “The first gravel event of the season in Portugal – commented Terenzio Testoni, Pirelli Rally Activity Manager – has already given us very extreme conditions, harder than we expected. Sardinia is also always a demanding rally, with the roads in danger of deteriorating a lot during the second lap on tests. The weather should be more stable this time and with higher temperatures, which makes the hard compound the clear main choice, but with the extra grip of the soft which also provides teams with an interesting option ”.
60 CREWS AT THE START. 60 crews have entered the 2022 edition of the Rally Italia Sardegna, also valid for Wrc 2 and Wrc 3, of which 59 have passed the checks. This is an excellent number of entries for the event, organized by the Automobile Club of Italy with the support of the Sardinia Region, given that all the main teams participating in the World Championship will be at the start with 11 hybrid Rally 1 cars that will be entrusted to the official drivers of Toyota (Rovanpera, Evans and Lappi), Hyundai (Neuville, Tanak and Sordo) and Ford MSport (Breen, Greensmith, Fourmaux and Loubet).
There will then be a fourth Yaris Rally 1 entrusted to Takamoto Katsuta, while in Wrc 2 there are 36 entries, among which the reigning champion Mikkelsen, the Russian Gryazin and the Bolivian Bulacia on Toksport’s Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo stand out. Then there will also be the Finnish Teemu Suninen on the Hyundai i20 Rally 2, with the French Yohan Rossel competing on the Citroen C3 Rally 2 (Camilli has forfeited). Also noteworthy is the presence of Martin Prokop, at his 17th participation in the island race, and of Jari Huttunen (both on Ford Fiesta MkII Rally 2), there will also be the leader of the Wrc 2 Master Mauro Miele championship sailed by Luca Beltrame who if he will see it with the German Armin Kremer (both on Skoda Fabia Rally2 Evo) and with Francesco Tali (Ford Fiesta MkII).
In Wrc 3, on the other hand, 4 drivers are at the start, to report the presence of Céco Cerny and our Enrico Brazzoli sailed by Manuel Fenoli on Ford Fiesta Rally 3. There are 5 Sardinian drivers at the start, among them there will be on Peugeot 208 T16 Francesco Marrone, the only driver to have participated in all 19 editions of the race. Then also Messori-Pier Paolo Cottu (Skoda Fabia), and Mara-Veronica Cottu, Fosci-Tendas and Vacca-Fois (all on Peugeot 208), and finally Giacomo and Davide Spanu on Ford Fiesta.
