How Sardinia served up a WRC sprint surprise for Tanak

When the World Rally Championship chose Sardinia to trial its new 48-hour format, few would have predicted the concoction of drama, joy and heartbreak that conspired to produce the joint closest victory in series history.

Two tenths of a second is barely a blink of an eye. But that was the margin that handed Hyundai’s Ott Tanak and Martin Jarveoja victory as a puncture three kilometres from completing the prescribed 266.12km (165 miles), denied Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier a record fifth Sardinia win.

You could be forgiven for thinking that we’ve been here before. Back in 2019, Tanak – then driving for Toyota – was on the brink of victory in Sardinia when a steering issue in the final stage handed Hyundai’s Dani Sordo a shock win.

Five years on, the very same Sassari stage that rendered Tanak speechless and dejected delivered unexpected joy. Ogier has also tasted defeat on this stage before, losing the win by 0.7s to Thierry Neuville in 2018 before this year’s cruel turn of events.

For those that believe in karma, there was another interesting strand to this tale. The previous record smallest winning margin saw Ogier beat his now Toyota boss Jari-Matti Latvala by 0.2s in Jordan 13 years before.

“It is really cruel for Seb to lose it like this,” said Tanak. “I have been there before myself, I have lost a safe victory on this stage, I know how bad it feels.”

Tanak prevailed after Ogier's puncture on the same stage where he lost out on victory in 2019

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

Tanak may have felt bad for his unfortunate rival, but this first win in his second spell at Hyundai truly ignited the Estonian’s title aspirations after a somewhat difficult start to the season. The 2019 world champion expected Sardinia’s rough gravel stages to offer a more intense rally thanks to the WRC’s new shorter format that was trialled.

The idea behind the 48-hour concept is to allow event organisers flexibility with formats in the future, instead of being locked into running standard 300+km itinerary. Compared to last year, the rally was 54km shorter, with action starting later on the Friday afternoon and finishing at the usual Sunday lunchtime. This bookended a brutal 14-hour Saturday without a midday service.

“Clearly here the road position is crucial, so we need to be in the rhythm immediately; in some ways for sure more intense,” predicted Tanak. “It is obviously very busy, there is no free time at all with very short nights. It is not easy, but it is bit more exciting probably.”

"It doesn’t change how we do the race, but to recover from an issue on a short rally is nearly impossible"
Sebastien Ogier

The drivers largely backed a move to try something new, but most agreed that there were elements that were not optimal.

“Honestly, I like it; it is also not perfect, but it's a [good] first try,” said Ogier. “The idea of first and second pass of stages in the same loop is not ideal, with the risk that the stage could become blocked. I am convinced that it could be a good format. It doesn’t change how we do the race, but to recover from an issue on a short rally is nearly impossible.”

Ogier was once again correct to point out the little room for error. After a shakedown that was derided by all as a “mickey mouse” stage, held in an unusual slot on Friday morning, the action began a matter of hours later.

It was the eight-time world champion, starting from a beneficial fifth on the road, that set the pace, winning two of four stages to end the loop 4.5s faster than Tanak. But it wasn’t plain sailing for the four-time Sardinia winner.

Ogier was fastest out of the traps on Friday

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“It has been tough,” said Ogier. “We went for an aggressive choice on tyres and we were on the limit, to be honest, but I think managing them is one of my strengths. There was a sensor issue, and we nearly didn’t restart, which was scary.”

A win on stage two without the use of hybrid power showed signs that Tanak was going to be a real factor in this rally. The hybrid issue reared its head before stage four but, according to Tanak, the “strong Hyundai engine helped us out”. More importantly, he’d come up trumps in the fight for road position for Saturday.

Team-mate Sordo held a solid third (albeit 33.2s down on Ogier), ahead of Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta (+34.5s), while road sweeper and championship leader Thierry Neuville performed admirably despite facing the worst of the conditions to sit 3.4s from third. The Belgian dropped 28.1s alone in the opening test due to road cleaning.

“That has been the hardest day you can imagine, the worst stages to get through,” said Neuville after incredibly winning stage four by 3.7s from Tanak. “Luckily it was only a half-day.”

Neuville’s championship rival Elfyn Evans wasn’t so fortunate. A difficult afternoon struggling for pace began with a left-rear puncture in stage one. Like team-mate Ogier, he’d gambled on taking five tyres, which left him on a knife edge for the rest of the loop. The Welshman summed up his day simply as “bad”. But his struggles for speed would be an ongoing story through the rally, heading into Saturday 57.3s adrift.

Evans did fare better than M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux, who ran as high as third after the first pass through the stages before his rally began to unravel. In stage three, the repeat of Osilo-Tergu, the Frenchman picked up a left-rear puncture before grinding to a halt in stage four and retiring with an alternator issue. Fourmaux rejoined the rally on Saturday only to suffer a myriad of problems.

“The rear roll bar was broken so the car was lazy from the rear and then the front roll bar was broken and that broke the brake pipe, so I lost the brakes,” said Fourmaux, who would go on to enjoy a stronger Sunday, leaving with three points. “Then after that, the car was just a boat or like driving a Citroen 2CV.”

Fourmaux's rally was thwarted by an alternator failure, but on his return to the rally a broken rear roll bar meant his car wasn't at its best

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

After a four-hour sleep, the crews were tested to their limits on Saturday. The stages became heavily rutted, exposing large rocks and bedrock, creating a high puncture risk that meant survival was key. Sordo even declared the Tempio Pausania stage as “destroyed”, while Tanak admitted it felt like he was driving without power steering such were the conditions in stage eight (Tula).

Brutal conditions aside, it was Neuville that created the big talking point. The Belgian quickly climbed to third to build on his impressive Friday but his hard work came crashing down when he went off the road in stage eight, beaching his i20 N on a bank.

“I lost concentration for a fraction of a second,” said a frustrated Neuville. “It was simply a left, over crest where in the morning I thought I was a bit slow. It stuck in my mind that I had to go faster, and the next corner was just behind, and I was still accelerating.”

"In this kind of rally, I don’t understand why we don’t have a midday service because it is very important" 
Takamoto Katsuta

Team-mate Sordo was among the first to come across the stricken i20 N, which prompted an unusual reaction from the Spaniard: “I see Thierry and I was really disappointed. Honestly, I don’t know why he needs to take this amount of risk.”

Katsuta had inherited third following Neuville’s exit, but the Japanese was the next domino to fall. His GR Yaris’s transmission developed an oil leak, which Toyota attempted to fix in the midday tyre fitting zone. However, on stage nine the issue proved terminal, handing Sordo third and Evans fourth.

“In this kind of rally, I don’t understand why we don’t have a midday service because it is very important, and at the same time drivers and co-drivers, we don’t have time to eat and no time to rest,” said Katsuta. “A whole day in the car is not nice. It was very difficult conditions and very tough for the car.”

At the front, the battle between Ogier and Tanak took centre stage. Tanak had emerged with a 0.1s rally lead when Ogier suffered a puncture on the opening test. An Evans-like tyre gamble forced Ogier to be careful without a spare. However, the fastest time on the next test, stage six, put Ogier back in the lead. It was short-lived as Tanak responded to lead by 3.5s at the end of the morning.

Neuville lit up the times to claim maximum points on Sunday, but had lost valuable ground with his off on Saturday

Photo by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport

Ogier reclaimed the lead in the afternoon, which coincided with Tanak revealing that his Hyundai team had asked him to “be safe and not push”. It was an order Ogier found hard to believe.

“Even if they told him [to be safe] I don’t know why he’d respect that to be honest,” said Ogier. “We are having a nice fight, why give up?”

The Hyundai team judged the extra risk required to continue to challenge for the win was too much, after losing Neuville in its pursuit of manufacturer points.

“I will never ask a driver to slow down but the discussion we had was about risk versus reward,” Hyundai boss Cyril Abiteboul told Autosport when asked to explain the call. “I could feel from his [Ott’s] feedback that increasing the risk level was simply unreasonable given the level of confidence he has in the car.”

Tanak added: “Clearly after Thierry went out we had only two cars left and with the championship on the table it is clear you can’t risk to lose another car. Nobody said I couldn’t fight Seb, but I was told not to take any risk.”

The instruction didn’t have a significant effect on the battle anyway, as Tanak struggled for confidence across the afternoon stages. Three stage wins from four put Ogier into a 17.1s lead and on course for a fifth Sardinia win, to pull one clear of Sebastien Loeb.

Ogier’s performance, particularly without a spare, drew high praise from Latvala: “He wants to win so much, again, you saw the passion and the fight is there. When situations are difficult, or he is stressed, he seems to turn out even better.”

Ogier and Tanak were in a class of their own, picking up 18 and 15 respective Saturday points as the dependable Sordo held third [(2m12.8s down, with 13 points), ahead of a frustrated Evans, grateful to be fourth and claim 10 Saturday championship points over Neuville, who failed to score.

Evans admitted he was lucky to score as many points as he did due to problems befalling others

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“It’s very frustrating, we’re not feeling at one with everything,” said Evans. “There is no satisfaction in what we have done, but at the same time it [the points] is something.”

Latvala felt his driver was “thinking too much about the championship” but respected that his title hopeful was still in the fight.

“I do respect that when it doesn’t go well, Elfyn is still consistent,” he said. “Personally, myself what I did was when it didn’t go well, I attacked more, and then I ended up crashing. But of course, you cannot win the championship without victories.”

From the outside, most people expected Ogier to cruise to victory on Sunday. But there was a final dramatic twist. With 12 Super Sunday points on offer, Tanak and the returning Neuville lit up the timing screens while Ogier, not competing for the drivers’ championship, saw his rally lead reduce.

“I do respect that when it doesn’t go well, Elfyn is still consistent” 
Jari-Matti Latvala

Heading into the final Power Stage, Ogier had a 6.2s margin over Tanak and was on course to take the spoils until a puncture struck in the final two miles. Ogier wrestled through the Sassari stage, which was more akin to Safari Rally Kenya, to fall agonisingly 6.4s slower than Tanak and miss out by 0.2s overall.

Suffering a similar feeling to his loss on the same stage in 2018 and Tanak’s dejection in 2019, Ogier was however gracious in defeat, putting the moment into sharp context.

“That is motorsport sometimes, you have to accept that s*** happens,” said Ogier. “There was nothing I could have done differently. At least I’m happy for it to go to my friend Ott as he has done a strong rally.

“It’s not the end of the world and there is much worse in life. This week we are so sorry for Ari Vatanen [1981 world champion] and his family losing Kim [Ari’s son], so my thoughts are with their family.”

Ogier was magnanimous in defeat after losing out on the final stage of the rally

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Tanak was parked up and convinced he was set for second place before realising he’d hit a surprise jackpot.

“In the end, it is just a bunch of emotions,” said Tanak. “Obviously, it is very positive as we were not focusing at all [on the win] and were just focused on the Sunday points, but we didn’t gain any points by winning the rally [under the new rules].”

Tanak’s focus on Sunday points was worthwhile, picking up 11. He trailed Neuville, who bounced back from Friday’s error superbly to take the maximum 12 points on offer by topping the Sunday standings and winning the Power Stage.

“There is nothing to be proud of with the overall result,” said Neuville. “We need to dig a bit deeper to understand why I lost concentration for a moment. But when it is about bouncing back, we have always been quite strong.”

‘Safe hands’ Sordo once again delivered a podium in third, which may have been his last WRC rally of a 20-year career, after completing his stated two-rally Hyundai programme. Asked about his future, he said: “I don’t know at the moment this year, I don’t have anymore [rallies] planned, so let’s see.”

As for Evans, there was a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel following a stronger run on Sunday that netted him an extra eight points. The Toyota driver finished fourth, ahead of M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster, who carefully and quietly scored a career-best fifth to edge impressive WRC2 class winner Sami Pajari.

“We have to count ourselves lucky to take this many points away from the weekend,” said Evans, who sits tied with Tanak, 18 points behind championship leader Neuville.

Sardinia 2024 will most likely be forever written into the record books for its grandstand finish. But the rally could also be the moment that sparks Tanak’s quest for a second world title.

Will Sardinia mark the start of Tanak's belated title push?

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images