WRC Rally Italy
WRC Sardinia: Lappi pips Tanak to lead after super special opener
Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi has claimed an early lead at the sixth round of the World Rally Championship in Sardinia after winning Thursday night’s super special stage.
Tom Howard
Edited: Jun 2, 2023, 7:25 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
The Finn successfully navigated the 3.23km test, held across a mix of tarmac and gravel surfaces in host city Olbia, to clock a time 0.2s faster than M-Sport’s Ott Tanak.
"This is fun. You have enough space, it's wide enough, you can play with the car,” said Lappi, who is planning to run a measured gamble on set-up for this weekend’s rally.
“On the gravel you just go fully sideways and keep the foot on the throttle because it's so slippery, that's the only way to do it.”
Tanak produced a committed run through the test to reach the finish just shy of the Finn’s earlier benchmark. The 2019 world champion is running upgraded suspension components on his Ford Puma, which he feels has improved the car.
"We did a good job in between [rallies], it was necessary after Portugal,” said Tanak, who encountered a small scare going over one of the jumps in the stage.
“I wouldn't say we should be too confident at the moment but for sure we are better than in Portugal.”
Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville was third only 0.5s adrift of team-mate Lappi, while Takamoto Katsuta was the fastest of a fleet of four Toyotas, a further four tenths behind Neuville.
Reigning world champion and championship leader Kalle Rovanpera, who will start Friday's stage first on the road, was fifth quickest a tenth faster than team-mate and four-time Sardinia winner Sebastien Ogier.
Hyundai’s Dani Sordo (+1.8s), Toyota’s Elfyn Evans (+2.0s) and the sister M-Sport entry driven by Pierre-Louis Loubet (+2.1s) rounded out the Rally1 field.
Oliver Solberg topped the leaderboard in the WRC2 class after posting a time, 0.2s faster than fellow Skoda driver Miko Marczyk.
Crews will faces six rough gravel stages on Friday including the new extended 49.9km Monte Lerno test.
Drivers are expecting a gruelling day after likening the stages to those driven at Safari Rally Kenya following this week’s recce.
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article WRC drivers set for Safari Rally-like conditions in Sardinia
Next article WRC Sardinia: Ogier stuns to lead Lappi after gruelling Friday morning
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Tom Howard
Argentina set to make WRC comeback in 2028
WRC
WRC 1 d
Argentina set to make WRC comeback in 2028
Sebastien Loeb tests again as Project Rally One submits WRC homologation papers
WRC
WRC 3 d
Sebastien Loeb tests again as Project Rally One submits WRC homologation papers
Latest news
How Qatar red flag helped Johann Zarco put Barcelona crash behind him
MotoGP
MGP MotoGP
Qatar GP
16 min
How Qatar red flag helped Johann Zarco put Barcelona crash behind him
McLaren to upgrade MCL40 car at its bogey F1 track Las Vegas
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
Las Vegas GP
1 h
McLaren to upgrade MCL40 car at its bogey F1 track Las Vegas
Carson Hocevar and Cleetus McFarland win LeMullets 2026 in epic finish
General
Misc General 5 h
Carson Hocevar and Cleetus McFarland win LeMullets 2026 in epic finish
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe