Ogier clocked the fastest time on the opening stage of the day, but ran into major trouble on the second test when he got caught in the dust cloud of his fellow Frenchman, Adrien Fourmaux. Fourmaux had suffered a puncture and was forced to change the tyre mid-stage, allowing Ogier to catch up rapidly behind him.
Ogier ended up losing nearly half a minute, but was later granted a time compensation by the rally organisers.
“Of course in that moment, it’s always the most important thing that you need to do is keep calm and a there is nothing you can do,” Ogier explained.
“If you just try to go fast you’re going to crash and lose big time anyway. You have to be patient and wait for a sensible decision from a rally organisation.”
The stewards eventually granted Ogier a revised time, which placed him 6.5 seconds behind Hyundai’s Ott Tänak, who had gone fastest on the stage. Ogier had already been trailing Tänak at the splits before catching up to Fourmaux, but the eight-time world champion isn’t leaving anything to chance.
“Luckily we got more or less the time back. Now we need to, of course, still check exactly the data to be sure it’s accurate because every second counts in the fight with Ott,” Ogier stressed.
On the final stage of the loop, Ogier responded with another commanding stage win. Despite building a 15-second lead over Tänak, he’s not ready to relax just yet — not in a rally like Sardinia.
“Not a relaxed morning, obviously. Started very well with the fastest time in stage one with a clean run. Second stage was a bit more eventful when we catched Adrian dust with his puncture was. We couldn’t see anything. Then we had to slow down for the last, I don’t know, a couple of kilometres,” he said.
“The last stage then went went well for us. It was the roughest of the loop. You’re always happy when you finish that one. And 15 seconds again it’s nothing. You can´t relax when Ott is behind you because he’s always going to be flat out. Still a positive loop for us.”
Three more stages remain on Saturday before the rally concludes on Sunday.
