Meeke flies back into rally lead

Kris Meeke has made a perfect start to the second day of Rally d’Italia-Sardegna by going fastest on the day’s first stage to take the lead of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge qualifier with five stages remaining.

Meeke completed the 25.97-kilometre Coiluna stage, televised live on Eurosport, in a time of 18m16.6s. It means he now heads Juho Hänninen in the overall standings by 5.9s with overnight leader Paolo Andreucci dropping to third after a troubled run through the stage.

“The damper was soft and we had no feeling with the car,” Andreucci said.

Meeke, meanwhile, reported suffering a “big, big, big moment” during his charge through the stage in his Peugeot UK 207. “Somebody kept us on the road,” he said afterwards.

Jan Kopecký is fourth, 30.8s adrift of Škoda Motorsport team-mate Hänninen.

Thierry Neuville survived a small overshoot on a right-hander to maintain his grip on fifth place in his Team Peugeot Belgium-Luxembourg 207.

P-G Andersson took more than one minute out of Teemu Arminen in the battle to finish as the leading driver in a conventional Group N car.

Overall positions after SS8:

1 Kris Meeke 1h31m58.2s
2 Juho Hänninen +5.9s
3 Paolo Andreucci +14.0s
4 Jan Kopecký +41.2s
5 Thierry Neuville +3m32.5s
6 Teemu Arminen +5m08.7s
7 P-G Andersson +5m50.2s
8 Luigi Ricci +7m00.9s