WRC 2025 Rd.6 Day 1 | 2025 | PRESS RELEASE | WRC

Rally Italia Sardegna: Day 1 Ogier and TOYOTA GAZOO Racing top tight lead battle

2025.6.6 (Fri)

Sébastien Ogier seized the lead for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team at the end of a close-fought and eventful first day of Rally Italia Sardegna.

Car 17 (Sébastien Ogier, Vincent Landais)

The Italian island event lived up to its reputation on Friday, with ambient temperatures reaching 30 degrees centigrade and narrow but fast gravel roads featuring little margin for error. A loop of three stages was run twice either side of service to form 120.7 competitive kilometres, and the all-new second test proved to be particularly tricky, catching out several drivers across its two passes.

Road cleaning was also a significant factor on the sandy surface, particularly for TGR-WRT’s championship-leading trio of Elfyn Evans, Kalle Rovanperä and Ogier, although conditions varied from stage to stage. Running third on the road, Ogier was able to claim the early lead in the morning’s first stage, then slipped back to fifth after the next test before finishing the morning third overall, only 8.1 seconds from the lead.

During the afternoon, Ogier closed back up on the lead before a stage win in the day’s finale – the longest test of the weekend at 27.95 km – vaulted him into the rally lead. He is 2.1s ahead of Adrien Fourmaux, whose Hyundai team-mate Ott Tänak is 5.2s further back in third.

Sami Pajari produced perhaps the strongest opening day of his rookie season in his TGR-WRT2 entry. He held third overall initially before a puncture in the morning’s final stage, and ended an otherwise consistent day in fourth place, 16.8s from the lead.

After a challenging morning loop, Rovanperä found faster form in the afternoon including a stage win in SS5, ending the day in fifth, six seconds behind Pajari. For Evans, the challenge of opening the road continued on the second pass but he reached the end of the day in sixth and should benefit from an improved road position on Saturday. Takamoto Katsuta showed promising pace with a second-fastest time in SS3, but a slow-speed roll on a tight corner in SS5 left him seventh.

Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“We can be very satisfied to be leading at the end of Friday in Sardinia. We knew that we faced a big challenge here, but this morning I could see the determination in Seb’s eyes to win this one and he did a really good job across the day. It’s also been nice to see Sami produce a very strong day, and Kalle also started to find the confidence in the afternoon, and neither of them are so far from the lead fight. Elfyn wasn’t in an easy place opening the road today but the key here for him is to be patient. We’ve already seen a lot of drama today and for Elfyn – and for Taka – there can still be the chance to climb the order and take good points.”

Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“As we expected it was a challenge to open the road today with quite a big cleaning effect. The feeling in the car this morning was actually not too bad with some improvement from Portugal, but the road was evolving a lot behind us and other drivers could take big chunks of time, especially in the last stage of the loop. In the afternoon there was still some cleaning effect for us, but when the road was hard and rocky I was also struggling more with the feeling, so that’s still something to work on overnight. A better road position will definitely help and we’ll go again tomorrow.”

Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“Overall it has not been too bad a day for us. We expected this morning to be difficult running second on the road and I struggled to get comfortable with the car. But based on this we could make quite a few small changes around the car in service and we found a better feeling, and the afternoon was definitely better. Still I think there was some cleaning for us on the second pass, so I’m really happy to have set such good times. With this better feeling in the car and a better starting place, I hope we can keep up a good pace tomorrow.”

Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“To be in the lead after Friday was not what we were expecting, so we must be very pleased with our day. We made some changes to the setup based on our experience in Portugal and I’m feeling happier with the balance of the car here so far. We had a strong, consistent day and I believe it was our good tyre management that allowed us to take the lead in the last stage of the day. Still, the gaps are very close to Adrien and Ott, so we will need to keep pushing just as hard tomorrow as we did today.”

Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“At first this morning I struggled with the feeling, but we made some changes to the setup between stages and it was getting better and better. Unfortunately in the second stage this afternoon, in a very tight corner, we turned in quicker than I had expected and hit the rock on the inside and rolled. I’m very disappointed but at least we could reach service. We will try to reset tomorrow; it won’t be an easy day but I will just keep focused and do my best. We have seen how a small mistake can catch people out on this rally, so let’s see what happens.”

Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It has been a really good day for us. I think we have been quite consistently on a solid pace. We maybe had some advantage from the road position compared to some, but I don’t think this was the only reason we could be quick. I don’t feel like I’m pushing more than on previous rallies, rather that the pace is just coming more and more naturally as we get used to the car. I’m sure the top three will be pushing very hard tomorrow and I’ll just be happy if we can keep up the pace we’ve had today.”

End of day one (Friday):
1 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 1h10m33.1s
2 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2.1s
3 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +7.3s
4 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +16.8s
5 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +22.8s
6 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +1m09.8s
7 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +2m27.9s
8 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +2m33.3s
9 Emil Lindholm/Reeta Hämäläinen (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +2m41.2s
10 Yohan Rossel/Arnaud Dunand (Citroën C3 Rally2) +2m57.5s
(Results as of 20:00 on Friday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

What's next?
Saturday follows a similar format to Friday, although slightly longer at 121.6 competitive kilometres. A loop of three stages takes in classic Sardinian roads south-west of Olbia and is run twice either side of mid-day service.