Sébastien Ogier set the pace, but less than a second covered the fastest six cars
Photography by Toyota
Words by Luke Barry
Sébastien Ogier topped a Toyota 1-2-3 on the shakedown stage for Rally Italy Sardinia.
Sardinia is the sixth round of the 2025 World Rally Championship, which continues to be led by Elfyn Evans as Hyundai searches for its first victory of the year.
However with seven wins in the last nine Sardinias, many are viewing Hyundai as the favorite for success – particularly as its drivers are fourth, fifth and seventh on the road.
But it was Toyota which ruled shakedown on Thursday – Ogier’s best effort 0.7 seconds clear of Sami Pajari and Takamoto Katsuta who shared the second best time.
Hyundai’s lead driver, Thierry Neuville, was fifth, 0.9s down on Ogier but equal with both M-Sport’s Josh McErlean and Toyota’s two-time world champion Kalle Rovanperä .
Ogier was the man to beat on shakedown on a weekend where he hopes his Sardinia luck will change
However the shakedown stage, Olbia Cabu Abbas, wasn’t particularly representative of the rally stages ahead this weekend, although has been used as a super-special as recently as 2023.
Neuville won that year, and is targeting a repeat result to kickstart his title defense on stages that have always tended to suit him.
“Overall it’s a rally I always enjoy,” Neuville said. “It was my first gravel rally in a four-wheel-drive car and overall I like when it’s more technical.”
The exact opposite is true of Rovanperä, whose weekend target is to outscore his championship-leading team-mate Evans who has the dubious task of sweeping the stages on Friday.
“I think it’s anyway the most difficult race of the calendar for me personally, I don’t like this event at all,” Rovanperä commented.
“So if we just get good points I’ll be happy. It’ll be important to be good compared to Elfyn, if we can stay close to him it’ll be important points.”
Toyota’s best victory hope would appear to be Ogier, who’ll start Friday third on the road and with strong form in Sardinia.
“The last two years we have been in the lead very close to win, but some bad luck has hit us both times,” Ogier said. “So we hope for better luck next time.”
With the top-six covered by less than a second, Adrien Fourmaux was two seconds off the pace in his Hyundai as he set the seventh-best time, along with his former M-Sport team-mate Grégoire Munster who revealed he’d been working to improve the traction of the Puma since Portugal.
Ott Tänak showed strong speed in Portugal and won in Sardinia last time out, but the Estonian was only ninth quickest on shakedown.
Asked if he had the winning package this weekend, he replied: “Let’s see.”
Tänak’s effort was 0.5s stronger than Evans who was 10th fastest, one spot up on M-Sport driver Mãrtiņš Sesks.
Oliver Solberg was the fastest of the Rally2 cars, but of those scoring WRC2 points it was Italian Roberto Daprà who topped the timesheets in his Škoda ahead of championship leader Yohan Rossel.
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: Rally Italy Sardinia, Rally Italy Sardinia 2025, Shakedown, WRC, WRC 2025
Publish Date June 5, 2025 DirtFish
Up Next