Following the disappearance of Cyprus and Turkey from the 2007 calendar, Rally d’Italia Sardegna and next month’s Acropolis Rally of Greece are the only Mediterranean gravel events this year and both have a reputation for being hard. In Sardinia a fine sandy surface masks a hard base beneath and once the early starters have swept the loose gravel away, the rocky roads combine with relatively high spring temperatures to demand strong durability from BP-Ford’s BFGoodrich tyres.
Although the rally has been a WRC round for the past three seasons, BP-Ford drivers Marcus Grönholm and Timo Rautiainen and team-mates Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen cannot say they know the speed tests well. Organisers change much of the route annually and for the third successive year more than half of this year’s special stages will be new. However, the characteristics of the roads are familiar to both drivers as the island is regularly used as a test location by the team.
The rally is based in the industrial town of Olbia, in the Costa Smeralda region in the north of the island, but starts and finishes in Porto Cervo, one of Europe’s most exclusive holiday resorts. The stages contain a mix of narrow, twisty roads and more flowing tracks. While organisers have removed many of the roughest roads from the itinerary, there are still enough there to demand strength and reliability from the team’s Ford Focus RS World Rally Cars.
After extending its lead in the manufacturers’ championship on the last round in Argentina, BP-Ford goes to Sardinia with a nine-point advantage. Grönholm lies second in the drivers’ standings, just three points from the lead, and the 39-year-old Finn already has five podium finishes to his credit from six events this season.
“When we first started going to Sardinia the stages weren’t so enjoyable but organisers have removed some of the roughest and narrowest roads and they are wider and faster now, although there are still plenty of narrow sections,” he said. “It’s one of the most abrasive rounds of the championship and if the weather is hot it’s important to think about looking after the tyres. But the pace is such that it’s hard to think about driving at anything other than flat out.
“We’re making a few small set-up changes following Rally Argentina. There’s nothing major, just a few small tweaks that we hope will make improvements. The time difference between myself and Loeb on the first full day in Argentina was little more than a tenth of a second a kilometre. That’s not big, but it’s big enough and these days it’s not easy to find that kind of time. We’re all working hard to close that gap in Sardinia,” added Grönholm.
Hirvonen lies third in the drivers’ championship and was second here last year. “The rally is in the same area as always but each year the organisers make changes to the route to miss out certain sections and include new ones,” he said. “It doesn’t make a big difference. The most difficult aspect is that the stages are so narrow, even when they are faster and flowing, often with large stones right on the edge of the road. It’s important to be precise with my driving and equally so with my pace notes for the new sections.
“One of my targets for this season was to be closer to Marcus and Sébastien Loeb in terms of stage times. In Sweden, Norway and Mexico I achieved that but in Argentina that wasn’t the case. Maybe it was because I had less experience of the roads, but I drove too safely. So I want to find more speed and be braver in Sardinia,” he added.