Although his road position was far from ideal, the Frenchman managed to stay in the thick of the fight throughout Friday morning.
After three special stages, Ogier holds a solid third place in the overall standings. On the final stage of the loop, he fell 8.1 seconds behind Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux, who surged into the rally lead.
Considering the circumstances, Ogier’s performance was more than respectable.
“I think I still see it as a very good run. The third one was another very good run. The middle one, maybe we could have done a little more, but it was quite tricky. There was quite a lot of loose gravel, and actually it felt like some sections were already like after two cars, because it was messed up – full of gravel on the road. So I didn’t feel really good on that stage. I think it’s a good start for us,” Ogier summed up his morning.
In contrast to the previous round in Portugal, where he was not satisfied with the car, Ogier now sounded far more content.
– We made changes to the car’s setup. Even though we didn’t get a chance to test specifically for this rally, we got good ideas and insights from our experience in Portugal. Those discussions with the team helped us adapt for this event, Ogier revealed.
“We made some changes to the setup. Even without a test, with the experience from Portugal, our team still did some good brainstorming – tried to analyse what we could change for this rally. And so far I have to say I’m definitely happier with the car here. We’re still missing information from tyre testing, and maybe this morning. It looks like the softs could have helped more. We could have maybe taken a bit more, like Hyundai did. But we don’t have that many (softs). It looks like they might still be useful at some point this weekend. For sure it’s never easy to come into a rally without testing and be spot on from the start. But we can still be pleased with the first three stages,” he added.
Ogier’s teammate, championship leader Elfyn Evans, has struggled as expected. The Welshman suffered from his road-sweeping duties, particularly on the final stage of the morning loop. He currently sits eighth overall, over 40 seconds off the lead.
“Yeah, pretty tough. Obviously, the feeling has been quite okay behind the wheel. Sometimes managing to not lose too much to those behind and to stay in the fight, but clearly in the last one, we lost quite a chunk – especially in the first half of the stage. So, yeah, tough, Evans admitted.
In a rally like Sardinia, Evans finds himself in an almost impossible situation. The role of road opener is notoriously unrewarding.
“You can almost make the story, you know, without even hearing the times. Almost. But it still doesn’t make you feel any better, really,” Evans said with a sigh.
There is hope, however, that conditions may slightly improve for him during the afternoon loop. At least to some extent.
“Traditionally, it’s not always been the case that the afternoon is better. But hopefully, here, with a bit of a harder base, it might be the case. There should be less of a cleaning effect,” Evans said.
