Peugeot continue to lead the 2005 World Rally Championship despite being beaten by both Citroen and Subaru in Sardinia, the fifth round of the 2005 series. Sebastien Loeb scored his third win of the 2005 season and now leads the Drivers’ series by one point from the driver he beat here, Petter Solberg. After last year’s domination on this event by Solberg/Subaru/Pirelli, the Loeb/Citroen/Michelin team were unbeatable, after taking the lead from Marcus Gronholm on the third stage. Gronholm overturned on the first day and only regained third place on the final morning of the rally. Citroen scored an impressive second category victory on this rally when the Spaniard Daniel Sordo won the Junior WRC, in a C2, while the non championship Group N category was a resounding success for the 20 year old Jari-Matti Latvala, despite serious transmission problems on the first day. Hard gravel conditions made this a severe test for tyres and cars alike, the Super 1600s suffering badly but favouring the lighter and softer suspensions of the Citroens. Teams played the opportunities offered by the “Five Minute “ (superally) rule to the full: no fewer than three drivers who scored Makes’ championship points failed to complete the full route.

The fifth round of the 2005 series, in Sardinia, was held much earlier in the year than before. Italy’s round of the world rally championship, run until recently from Sanremo, had never been held in the first half of the season before and it was only the second time the rally had been held on the island of Sardinia. 75% of the roads were new, after detailed changes following severe storms during the winter, while the Service Parks for both Shakedown and the rally itself, together with the route for the Shakedown, were also new. Road repairs had created a curious imbalance about the stages and led to worries about how the repairs would stand up during second runs through stages. After complaints as to how slow and tricky the stages were last year, a policy had been put in place this year to choose stages which were designed to be faster and wider, including one stage previously used on the Costa Smeralda Rally. Sardinia was the first of four successive world championship rallies to be held in Mediterranean region.

The substantial change in the route, style, and the calendar date, created a lottery situation for the tyre manufacturers, on account of having to choose tyres well before the event, even though Sardinia has in recent years become a popular location for rally car testing. Then, just a fortnight before the start, the location of the Ceremonial Start and Finish were also changed. After Pirelli’s domination of last year’s event, Pirelli’s hopes were high, until the devastating performance by Loeb with the new type Michelins on the unexpectedly warm Rally New Zealand. Sardinia is a rally where only one design of tyre tread was allowed.

For the first orthodox rally of the season in Europe, entry levels perked up and with no fewer than 26 World Rally Cars were on the entry list. There were six official and semi-official Fords with six of the Fords prepared at M-Sport, four works entries - two nominated drivers, and non-nominated entries for Henning Solberg and Antony Warmbold, with two entries from the Eddie Stobart team for 18 year old Matthew Wilson (son of M-Sport team principal Malcolm, this entry being withdrawn after Wilson’s huge crash the weekend before in Wales) and Mark Higgins. Citroen were confident after extensive recent testing resulted in victory in New Zealand. For the first time there were a total of four Xsara WRCs. This was the first time the Italian driver Gianluigi Galli had driven a WRCar on his home event, having been best Group N driver on Rally Italia four times in the past, and the first time Subaru team driver Stephane Sarrazin had driven an orthodox rally on gravel. This was the first appearance of the two-car Olsbergs Subaru team with the arrival of Daniel Carlsson as teammate to Tobias Johansson. Carlsson’s programme of eight rallies for this private team (in addition to the three rallies this year planned with Peugeot) comes after his first international win on the Rally of Portugal, held the week before New Zealand.

This was the third round of the JWRC series, and all 13 registered drivers took part, with several national championship Super 1600s present as well, including Andrea Dallavilla in a C2. JWRC driver Luca Cecchittini had a works-supported Fiat for the first time, as did teammate to Mirco Baldacci, while Conrad Rautenbach rallied a C2 for the first time. Top seeded private entry came from Andrea Navarra, current Italian champion, who finished sixth and best non-works entry last year in an Impreza WRC. This year he drove a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Group N.

As the cars arrived on the island, Sardinia was on its best behaviour weather-wise, warm and idyllic. The event was its delightful Italian self, full of style and almost complete on detail. It had been difficult to let everyone know in time that the Ceremonial Start had in fact been moved about 30km after all the event documentation had been (beautifully) prepared, and the official entrance to the official parking area was right through the port-side service area. (It was a squeeze but infinitely more convenient than the area used seven months earlier). Last year’s winner Petter Solberg was the fastest driver in Shakedown, ahead of Marcus Gronholm, while the cars from Mitsubishi (with their Italian team director and team manager!) driven by Harri Rovanpera and Gianluigi Galli, were third and sixth fastest. The Fords were slow, best was the non-nominated entry of Henning Solberg, ninth overall, slower than Armin Schwarz’s Skoda. Pirelli had already showed their intentions, taking five of the six top placings at Shakedown, with the only Michelin driver able to challenge being Sebastien Loeb (fourth fastest) able to challenge. The biggest private team was Kronos who ran two Xsaras, for Manfred Stohl (who had been suffering from food poisoning during recce and was far from well) and Juuso Pykalisto, and two Super 1600 C2s as well.

Leg 1

66 cars (including 23 World Rally Cars) lined up at the Ceremonial Start at the new venue of Porto Rotondo, which if anything was even more atmospheric and delightful than Porto Cervo had been in 2004, but there was an unsolved mystery when Janne Tuohino was given the publicity of being the first car off the ramp! It didn’t matter as all the team cars were soon put on trailers for the journey back to Olbia where the ‘real’ event would start at 0800 the next morning. The weather was still fine, warm but not hot, and sunny all the time. On the Friday the rally was concentrated on stages to the south of Olbia, but the first stage in the loop of three was quite unlike the second and third. One of the team tyre advisers explained: stages 2/5 and 3/6 were flowing and faster, good for Michelins, stage 1 was narrower and twisty, good for Pirelli. It was to be a most accurate prediction. Top five on stage 1 were Pirelli-tyred cars, winner on stages 2 and 3 was Loeb. Loeb found the car’s suspension too soft for stage 1 and adjusted this before he continued, to good effect, so that by half way through the day he was 7.9 seconds in front. The driver who was second was another Michelin-user, and a surprise - it was Mikko Hirvonen, in his borrowed, privately-run ‘03 Focus, running 19th on the road! “Actually the conditions were not the same. It is true the surfaces were cleaning, but for us there were now a lot of rocks in the road unearthed by the cars in front.” For a professional driver dumped at the end of last season (by Subaru) this was the right result at the right time...

Initial leader was Marcus Gronholm, fastest on stage 1 and second best on stage 2, but on stage 3 he crashed. “I was late in braking and went off the road at the approach to a sharp left turn. We landed on the road below, which was the rally route after the junction, so we actually cut the corner!” It was to no avail though because the car stopped on the rally route on its side at right angles to the desired direction of motion. It took spectators and officials a minute before he could get going again, with a broken suspension and a strut that had poked a hole in the bonnet. After stage 3, the Finn was 22nd, now 88.5 seconds behind the new leader, Loeb. Conditions were difficult. Petter Solberg had the advantage of being first car on the road with patches of dust reducing visibility for the following drivers, but twice the Norwegian spun and was lucky to be lying third at the midday service. Punctures were rife. Harri Rovanpera had been second on stage 1 but had punctures on the next two stages and fell to sixth. Toni Gardemeister bent his suspension on a rock early in stage 1and was 15th, nearly a minute behind the leader. Antony Warmbold discovered that this rally demanded a tidy, easy driving style. “When I tried hard, I was slow. On stage 3 I eased right up and was fifth fastest!” Galli had brake failure, Daniel Carlsson (on his first rally in a Subaru WRC) was tenth overall, Stephane Sarrazin (on his first rally on gravel) was 18th. Schwarz had brake trouble, Tuohino gear shifting problems, Jusso Pykalisto punctured on stage 1, Xavier Pons stalled at the start of stage 2, Mark Higgins spun and went off for a half minute or so on stage 2, Tobias Johansson was happy after a week testing in Finnish Lapland with Pasi Hagstrom, but Nigel Heath, in the private Fabia, retired after suffering an undercharging battery when he had an underbonnet fire at the start of stage 3. “This ‘Five Minute Rule’ business is very odd. Do you know I made a better time on stage 3 than my friend Errani (Octavia WRC), when I was having a drink in the bar...”

Punctures completely dictated the story in JWRC. Kosti Katajamaki was leading Urmo Aava (his first rally since Catalunya ‘04) while the best puncturing driver was Per-Gunnar Andersson who led Conrad Rautenbach (no punctures but a bent rim), Kris Meeke (one puncture), Guy Wilks (punctured and had consequent brake failure), Luca Betti was an unpunctured seventh, driving slowly and infuriating drivers stuck behind him, Sordo (one puncture, and a victim in Betti’s dust), Mirco Baldacci (one puncture), Martin Prokop (one puncture and Betti dust), Luca Cecchittini (one puncture), Pavel Valousek (one puncture) while Alan Scorcioni went off the road and stopped for the day. There was a curious tale in Group N when 20 year old Jari-Mati Latvala had gear selection troubles and found his car was stuck in third gear. “I thought I would have to give up when we came to one steep hill but by a miracle I could get it into second, and then we could get back to third.” There was another miracle - he was leading Group N despite all that! Andrea Navarra stopped with a transmission problem in his Mitsubishi, while the leader after stage 1 was a famous name, this was Alessandro Bettega, son of the late Attilio. He dropped down to third, behind Sergio Pianezzola, younger brother of former Italian championship driver Gilberto.

Gronholm started the afternoon stages with a purpose. Fastest on stage 4, he immediately jumped up to 14th place, he was almost 20 seconds slower on stage 5, when he tried to ease the stresses on his tyres, but he had jumped to eighth. On stage 6 he lost a half minute when a tyre exploded yet he rose to seventh! Another man in the news was Gardemeister, catching up after his earlier misfortune. He had stiffened the suspension and fitted harder compound tyres. From 15th he was up to fifth. Hirvonen was doing well to hold third place: he had been passed by Francois Duval but the Belgian then rolled and was unable to keep going, but the Finn meanwhile had lost his brakes. Conditions on the stages were worsening, if there weren’t punctures from the rocks, the tyres were wearing down to the canvas from the bedrock. Markko Martin, one of rallying’s most gentle drivers on the tyres, was horrified at how much the tyres were wearing. Loeb had two punctures but he had a 31.7 second lead over Solberg, who also had two punctures. Further back, Carlsson had a spin on stage 6 which dropped him from 10th to 13th, desperately near the 15th place cut-off position on which the next day’s running order was decided. Manfred Stohl was up to tenth, despite unhappiness with his pacenotes, arising from having to miss second passes over many stages when he was ill. Warmbold was again fifth fastest on the same stage he made this position in the morning. Roman Kresta was slowed when he had to revert to manual gearshift, Tuohino was 15th upset that carefully laid plans to receive advice about his rivals’ stage split times, which would avert him having to restart first car on the road, failed. Schwarz punctured twice and he had to change the brake pads himself between stages, Sarrazin was going carefully, horrified (as an ex-F1 driver!) at the roughness of the stages! Higgins (in a Pirelli-tyred Focus) had three punctures... Chris Atkinson and Galli were both out after damaging their cars hitting a rock, believed to be the same one.

In JWRC, Katajamaki had his first puncture of the rally on stage 4 but finished the day 1m45s in front of Aava, who also punctured on that stage, while Meeke badly damaged the front of his car on a heavy landing. Andersson punctured on stage 4 as well, finishing the day with bald front tyres while Wilks had two punctures on stage 4, going easily the rest of the day and finished sixth behind Sordo, who had no punctures but drove stage 6 with the rear hatch door flying open. Cecchettini broke a shock absorber on stage 4 and punctured on stage 6, but was happy with his works car. “It’s so different from my own Punto. The engine, the traction, the stability - all completely different!” Conrad Rautenbach’s promising run came to an end when he realises there was some problem with the engine, and at service the PH Team mechanics noticed one cylinder had lost compression, and in the morning the engine would not start in parc ferme.

Leg 2

Of the 66 cars which started, only three did not restart, Navarra’s Mitsubishi and two others, so 63 cars including Duval’s repaired Citroen and Galli’s repaired Mitsubishi were in action again. The second day was charged with anticipation. Of the five scheduled stages, of which one of them (number 9) was planned to be a short television spectacular, the other four were a pair of long stages, respectively 30 and 38km long. Immediately stage 7 began there was drama. Carlsson missed his braking point, slid off the road and was stuck undamaged in sand. The remarkable Hirvonen’s ended his glory event when he retired with suspension damage, and then Xavier Pons (running 17th car on the road) overturned his Peugeot on to it side and blocked the route for the cars behind. While the stage was still running, Loeb pulled another seven seconds ahead of Petter Solberg despite a puncture, while the JWRC and Group N cars all drove through the stage as a road section. 46 minutes late, stage 8 got under way. Stage 8 (the longest one) was to see Solberg’s first scratch time of the event and trauma for Galli. An engine sensor failed and he lost over 40 minutes before this was traced and he could start again. Gardemeister overshot a junction and had to reverse, it was enough to let Markko Martin past into fourth place while Pykalisto lost two minutes with gearshift problems and dropped from seventh to 12th. Henning Solberg finally got into a better rhythm and jumped to seventh despite a broken shock absorber while Mark Higgins was now up to eighth. Stohl was driving steadily, still suffering the effects of his curtailed recce and was 16th (his codriver Ilka Minor enjoying her 30th birthday), while another missing person was Chris Atkinson (again!). Earlier he admitted it was the result of an impact. This time “A ball joint broke. There was nothing specifically that I touched, but there were rocks everywhere!” By the midday service Loeb was 36.2 seconds in front of Solberg, while Rovanpera was back up to third place.

Despite Solberg’ stage win, the event was decidedly going Loeb’s way, even if Pirelli-users held the next three places. Pirelli tyre chief Fiorenzo Brivio: “I guess we took a risk and lost. On this event we are allowed only one tyre tread pattern, and we gambled on one of the two successful types of tyre we used here last year. But it wasn’t so simple. The stage conditions were different.” Today the stages were sandier and softer than Friday’s, narrower tread patterns being preferable. Ground temperatures were expected to go up into the mid-30s during the afternoon, into Michelin territory! There was another surprise when Galli, with nothing to lose after his earlier problems, made fastest time for Mitsubishi on stage 9. Two more retirements. Armin Schwarz had earlier lost ten seconds having a driveshaft changed (the team thought originally it was clutch failure), then as he continued the semi-automatic gearshift failed, but he finally came to a stop when the clutch itself actually broke. And finally Henning Solberg came to rest at the end of stage 9 with a broken front suspension strut failure. A re-run of the 38km stage finished the day where Higgins found himself up to seventh, ahead of Kresta, Johansson and Pykalisto, but the day had not finished its wicked ways. Gardemeister came to a halt in stage 11 with oil pressure failure. So at the end of the second leg Tuohino reported very bad handling and went off the road. He set off again, and the same thing happened again. This time he decided it was better to stop and claim the “Five Minute Rule”. Loeb (who had a puncture on stage 10) then pulled out nearly another 20 seconds on the final stage to head Solberg (who had now eased his pace) by 55.2 seconds. Rovanpera was still third, another two minutes back, and Gronholm had got in front of teammate Martin into fourth. Duval, the driver who missed two stages the day before, had risen to 12th place despite having a tyre explode on stage 9 and had to tackle the two long stages with no spare. He had another puncture but happily the mousse this time worked. Pykalisto had his gearbox changed but his gear selection problems were not completely solved. Johansson spun and broke the gearbox in his anxiety to get going again, blocking the road for Galli.

JWRC had a depressing time - it was past midday before they had a stage they could tackle, but then it all hotted up for them. Leader Katajamaki lost four minutes off the road, needing the help of spectators to regain the road. Unfortunately their car suffered in the process, the “helpers” wrenching off a front fender (and then demanding to keep it!) in their anxiety to help. Following next car was second placed Urmo Aava, who saw Katajamaki’s plight and immediately eased off, not realising that Kris Meeke was about to pass them into the lead. Sordo was up to third but Andersson broke his gearbox and his teammate Wilks had a suspension lower control arm fail. Both Betti and Baldacci were physically suffering having eaten something bad. One stage later, Sordo passed Aava, so Citroens were 1-2. Suzuki people looked crest-fallen, especially when the weights of the cars were published by the organisers, and the C2s were some 90kg lighter than the Ignis’. Then on stage 11 it was the turn of the jaws of the Citroen people to drop. Meeke slid off the road and got his C2 stuck on rocks, and then Aava went missing, so that Sordo was first, 2m40.5 seconds in front of Katajamaki. Katajamaki lost first his brakes, then his sumpshield and suspected the Suzuki chassis had become twisted. Aava kept second place even though he stopped to change a flat tyre. Sordo was lucky when a water hose became disconnected and he was able to find water en route to top up the radiator. Baldacci had a broken shock absorber.

Later in the day some things became clear and others confused. Schwarz was excluded by the Stewards for illegal servicing. In the panic at the Service Park at the start of the day (when the driveshaft not the clutch had broken) the team forgot to give the crew a can of oil, and when the car was leaving the post-service refuelling zone, a mechanic was seen giving the crew the can. Ten years ago, Toyota were fined USD300,000 for such an offence. This time the FIA simply reprimanded the team, such is the Federation’s efforts to reduce the costs of the sport! Skoda were evasive all day about the issue with their press team vacating the headquarters before the enormity of the incident became public. Two people were particularly angry. Firstly the technician who it was rumoured had summarily lost his job with the team, and Schwarz who had lost a valuable opportunity to use the final day for testing. Meanwhile the “Five Minute Rule” was causing confusion almost everywhere! When Duval (running under this rule, after his accident damage the day before) was blocked by Pons, he was given an official interruption time based on Stohl’s actual stage time. This meant that he finished the day 14th overall (not bad for someone who had missed two stages!) but Citroen were unhappy with this. Even though Duval under traditional rules was out of the event, Citroen challenged the “fairness” of the time and had this reduced, so that Duval had more than a minute taken off his originally allotted interruption time. This meant he was officially lying 12th at the end of the day, which therefore meant he would run (under the reverse seeding rules) in fourth place on the road, not second, which was rather unfair on Stephane Sarrazin who was moved nearer to the hated position of first car on the road. The Frenchman had completed every stage but now had to run in conditions which were more disadvantageous. In the top 15 there were three drivers who had missed stages, so Tobias Johansson who completed the route, and running a true 12th overall was 15th and so was forced to run first car on the road. His private R-E-D team complained about this, but the Stewards paid more attention to the demands of the official teams whose cars had not completed the route (like Citroen and Subaru, who had the interruption time of Chris Atkinson, who had missed six stages in all, changed as well) than serving the interests of the drivers who had done all the route. Rallying was truly going mad. When Gardemeister’s car was taken back to service, it was discovered that the oil pressure problem which had caused him to abandon the rally was in fact due to a failed oil pump. This was changed and the team were ready to restart again on the final day, and the management very happy he had switched off the engine as soon as the problem manifested itself. The Finn thereby jumped straight back into eighth place overall. It also avoided the ignominy of the two works cars being headed by Mark Higgins’ private Focus.

Leg 3

It was another sunny day in beautiful Sardinia for the 55 cars who elected to restart the final leg! Main drama of the day was Rovanpera’s retirement with front suspension failure, which let Gronholm up to third. Higgins fell back, having to use manual gearshift, and dropped behind Kresta. At the head of the field there was a general relaxation, Loeb made best times on the first two stages of the day, Petter Solberg on the third. At least the “Five Minute” madness had ended for the event because the rule insists on drivers completing every stage on the final day to be qualified. As the rally entered the second loop of stages Higgins had more problems, losing time on the road and falling behind Warmbold. Galli recovered from his problems on the second leg (firstly from the engine sensor, then the gearbox failure) with high hopes, but after 12 he lost 3rd, 4th and 5th gears and retired again. Higgins troubles worsened when the clutch failed and he had to repair this himself by the roadside, arriving at the following time control 12 minutes late (2 minutes penalty). Without that penalty, he would have finished in the championship points... Warmbold had alternator failure before the final stage, and when his car finally reached Olbia the car had to be pushed to service before continuing to the Ceremonial Finish at Porto Rotondo. As the rally progressed to the finish, three of the eight drivers scoring Manufacturers’ championship points had failed to complete the route.

Madness continued in JWRC. Scorcioni withdrew, certain that his car would continue to give troubles if he carried on. Meeke, who failed to finish the final stage on Leg 2, restarted again officially in fourth place, so that when Katajamaki retired after the first stage of the final day the Irish driver was up to third. Back again in the fray was Rautenbach (having missed five stages) with a rebuilt engine, and PG Andersson (back again after failing to finish the final Saturday stage) made best times on the first loop of the day. Then both the Fiats (Baldacci and Cecchettini) retired within a stage of each other, both with differential failure after suffering all rally with traction difficulties, caused principally by inexperience of the optimum suspension set-up. Betti finished the best Italian driver on the whole event. Nine of the 13 JWRC competitors were classified as finishers, but only four (Sordo, Aava, Betti and Prokop) completed the route, and between the other five drivers no fewer than 17 stages were missed. In Group N Jari-Mati Latvala won the category in his Subaru Impreza.

Martin Holmes 1st May 2005