The sixth race of the season will be held in the Rally World Series, when it’s the Sardinian gravel rally. The race weekend, which is shorter in terms of time, challenges the drivers with its intensity.
Urheilu follows the World Rally Championship in Sardinia on its website, from the special test stage to the final decision. You can find all the most important events and the most interesting clips in the tracking.
You can listen to Pertti Lappalainen’s and expert Henri Haapamäki’s preview of the World Rally Championship in Sardinia below or on Areena.
The World Rally Championship in Sardinia will be run in a new format, as the competition will not start until Friday afternoon. In recent years, rallies have been used to start already on Thursday or Friday morning at the latest. For a long time, several drivers have been hoping to shorten the race weekends.
As for the weekend in Sardinia, the rally series answers the call. In Sardinia, the test special stage is only run on Friday. On Thursday, driving overalls were not gassed on the Mediterranean island.
‘s rally expert Henri Haapamäki consider the experiment only positive.
– I don’t see anything bad in this, Haapamäki says directly.
The World Rally Championship wants to increase its interest, as evidenced by the desire to try the new points calculation system and the now condensed race weekend. For the drivers, the rally is not easy, even though Thursday’s driving day is canceled and Friday is shortened to only four special stages.
Haapamäki says that the drivers’ load will be reduced when they don’t have to drive at racing speed on Thursday. There are only about 50 less special test kilometers in the race than last year.
– That number does not make the rally any easier, says Haapamäki.
He reminds that the costs caused to the stables during the weekend will remain more moderate than normal when the start time is shortened.
The competition weekend is the sum of many factors
On race weekends, in addition to special tests, drivers are burdened by, among other things, transitions, short nights’ sleep and varying conditions. Leading the World Series Thierry Neuville predicts that night’s sleep will be less due to long shifts in an interview with WRC.com.
Almost 800 kilometers of transitions are driven in Sardinia. Sitting in the car will be more than 1000 kilometers for the driver duo, when the EK kilometers are almost 270.
There is a lot of noise in the rally cars when driving through transitions, and in Sardinia it is probably also really warm. Mediterranean heat has been promised for the island, and according to forecasts, the temperature during the day may reach almost 30 degrees.
In Sardinia, there are no day maintenance services at all on driving days. In addition, there are only a few hours between the special test and the first race clip, while there is often a break almost around the clock, sometimes even a day.
Now, quickly after the test EK, there is an important run for Saturday’s starting positions.
– There is little time to change the engine or “couple” the body if, for example, something happens during a special test or the adjustments are completely out of whack, Haapamäki elaborates.
The lack of day care is especially challenging on Saturday, when there are almost 150 special test kilometers to drive.
– You have to have a strong faith in the future if you dare to drive such a day with a wild company, when you know that there are no maintenance men to service the car if something happens, Haapamäki paints.
Does the format favor certain drivers?
Haapamäki sees the compressed weekend as positive, especially for rally fans. From Thursday, the sport follower doesn’t have to be glued to the screen because of the rally, in the middle of everyday life.
– However, the biggest fan base is the one that follows the rally somewhere other than on the spot, Haapamäki reminds and says that four days of following the rally is a long time even for fans of the sport.
According to Haapamäki, the format does not favor certain drivers or cause changes in the power relations between them. The preliminaries are even, as Neuville suffers from his first starting place on Friday, Elfyn Evans has been quiet in the last rallies and fell into mistakes in the early season Ott Tänak has improved.
– Tänak has shown strong bets in the last rallies, so there is a lot of trust in him, Haapamäki predicts.
He reminds that the stables are currently very flat. Even a Ford car has a chance to fight for success. Especially when Sardinia’s changing, rocky and demanding conditions often lead to adversity and surprises.
– When Adrien Fourmaux has been so lively, every team has a driver who can fight for at least a podium place, the expert refers to the Ford driver who had a good start to the season.