The sixth round of the FIA World Rally Championship got underway in the southern city of Cagliari last night with a super special stage which was won by Martin Prokop, the first time the Czech driver has led a World Rally Championship event. Today, however, the crews headed into the hills for a long and hot day of competition spanning 15 hours and covering 133.50 competitive kilometres. Paddon, taking advantage of a great road position, reeled off a string of three fastest times from the day’s opening four tests to pull out a 23 second advantage by the mid-day service. This afternoon, over largely repeated stages, the Kiwi driver might not have sealed any fastest times, but he remained uncatchable and overnights with an 8.8 second lead for the first time in his WRC career. Latvala has been one of Paddon’s nearest challengers, the Finn winning three stages. He has however had some of his own moments, overshooting a junction this morning and then losing second position in the penultimate stage when he ran wide, hit a bank and sustained a puncture. This enabled Ogier, who has had little more than a minor clutch problem, to move into second despite struggling with his road position at the front of the field.

Behind the leading trio, Dani Sordo has set a great pace and was fourth going into the final stage, despite a 10 second penalty for a jumpstart on last night’s super special. The Spanish Hyundai driver had had little more than an anti-roll bar problem this afternoon and was in the thick of a fight with Ott Tanak until taking a wheel off in the final stage. He plummeted down the leaderboard. Tanak, who took a stage victory in the new Fiesta RS WRC, has had a niggling problem with the handbrake throughout the day and is 31.3 seconds adrift of the podium. Mads Østberg is nearly a minute further behind, the Norwegian losing time with a puncture this morning. Thierry Neuville dropped to sixth at the end of a frustrating day that saw him contend with two punctures, a gearbox and handbrake problem and being down on power this afternoon. Prokop has dropped to seventh and leading Italian, Lorenzo Bertelli, is eighth on his home event. Italian Rally Champion Paolo Andreucci is 10th and topping the FIA WRC 2 Championship category.

As predicted, Rally Italia Sardegna has taken casualties and Kris Meeke was the first to hit problems in the opening stage. The DS3 WRC driver rolled, ruling him out of the rest of the day. Andreas Mikkelsen was also forced out with fuel pressure problems and Robert Kubica missed a braking point in the second stage, leaving him off the road and out of the rally.

Rally Italia Sardegna – Unofficial Results after Section 3