Friday wrap: Loeb tops opening-day battle in Italy

Sebastien Loeb plans to win Rally d’Italia Sardegna the hard way after completing the opening day of the world championship qualifier in first overall.

Although the Citroen DS3 WRC driver will take a lead of 33.2s into Saturday’s six all-gravel stages, he could have opted to drop time on Friday’s final test to gain a more favourable road position for Saturday when the roads are more soft and sandy in nature compared to the harder surface experienced on day one.

“It will be difficult tomorrow but I will see what I can do,” said the seven-time world champion. “But I prefer it like this with a big gap to the others behind me.”

Citroen privateer Petter Solberg completed day one in second overall but said he could have been closer to the front had he not dropped more than 40 seconds when his car’s turbo boost pipe worked loose on stage two. He’d gone fastest of all on the opening stage.

“I’m fed up with tactics so I just wanted to push and I’ll push again tomorrow,” said Solberg, who is still chasing his first podium finish of the season following a frustrating run of results.

Mikko Hirvonen had been embroiled in a close fight with Loeb for first place only to suffer a right-rear puncture on stage seven. After Sebastien Ogier, in the second factory Citroen, elected to slow on the final stage, Hirvonen moved into third, 53.1s adrift of Loeb.

“I’ve had good speed today, winning three stages and it’s still possible to win,” said the works Ford Fiesta pilot.

Convinced he would be unable to fight for victory in Sardinia owing to a lack of “feeling” with this car, Ogier decided to drop time on stage eight, reasoning that it could be possible to recover any lost ground on Saturday with a more advantageous road position behind Solberg and Hirvonen. “I did this to try to help the team,” he said.

Mads Ostberg dropped time on Friday afternoon with a brake problem but holds fifth overnight in his M-Sport Stobart Fiesta. The Norwegian is one place in front of Spaniard Dani Sordo in the factory MINI John Cooper Works WRC.

“Honestly I’m really happy with the performance of the car,” said Sordo, the sole works MINI runner to complete day one following team-mate Kris Meeke’s retirement on stage three. “I pushed the car in the afternoon, slid more and was more aggressive with the car. The car really is not bad for the first time and we did not have any problems.”

Behind Super 2000 World Rally Championship pacesetter Ott Tanak, Matthew Wilson is ninth after his Fiesta was beset by brake problems. Tanak’s SWRC class rivals Martin Prokop and Juho Hanninen are ninth and 10th respectively with Armindo Araujo 11th in his Motorsport Italia John Cooper Works WRC.

Khalid Al Qassimi is 12th overnight in his Team Abu Dhabi Fiesta, with Dennis Kuipers 13th in his FERM Power Tools World Rally Team example. Dutchman Kuipers is competing in Sardinia for the first time and said he was satisfied with his performance.

“I’m really happy and the pace notes are going well,” said Kuipers. “I had a problem with the oil pressure on stage seven so had to stop but it’s okay now.”

Several expected frontrunners hit trouble including factory Ford ace Jari-Matti Latvala, Swedish privateer PG Andersson and Evgeny Novikov, who ran as high as third before rolling into retirement on stage seven.