Rally Italia-Sardegna / Round-up
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Citroën
This rally Mads Østberg
was Citroën’s ‘man of
the match’. His sore
thumb (a reminder from
Rally Argentina) did not
bother him anymore
and he fought his own
fight with fellow Norwegian Mikkelsen. The
gap was never very big
but Østberg managed
to stay in front, when
his rival struck bad luck
he could relax a bit and
wait for things to happen. So when Latvala
made his mistake he
was ready to change
places and was confident enough to hold
off the Finn’s attack
through the last day. After two bronze medals
in Sweden and Portugal, silver in Italy was
his best result for the
Citroën team. Next stop
gold? We wouldn’t be
surprised, as he seems
to feel a whole lot better than this time last
year! Meeke started
with a scare by going
over a jump a bit too
fast. Luckily it did not
jeopardize his chances
too much, but technical
glitches threw him back
and all he could do was
using the rally as an extended test-drive. Third
Citroën driver Khalid
Al-Qassimi gathered
his first championship
point of this season,
but he lacks the experience and therefore it
took him some time to
find a set up that suited
him. After this had been
achieved he could
enjoy his drive again
and end his rally in the
points.
RK M-Sport World Rally Team
His reasonable result in Argentina, gave Robert Kubica some
more confidence. This confidence got a minor blow when on
Saturday’s penultimate stage. In
a nice battle with Elfyn Evans he
bumped into a rock and broke a
wheel lying in a good fifth position. The last day he came back
to 8th place a result that brought
a faint smile back on his face.
His next event is his home rally,
so hopefully his local fans there
will inspire him!
Hyundai
Both Thierry Neuville and
the Hyundai team are doing the best they can. After showing their value
by leading the rally for
some time the Belgian
was thrown back again
by technical things. But
he made good use of the
rally to do a lot of testing. But like M-Sport, at
Hyundai they also got a
serious blow when Hänninen threw his car in off
the road rolled it and ended the rally on his roof.
Unlike M-Sport, Hyundai
will be able to use a lot of
parts of the car but the i20
bea