Ogier survives brutal Friday to lead WRC Rally Italia Sardegna
7th June 2025Toyota’s eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier has survived the brutal action on Friday at the World Rally Championship’s Rally Italia Sardegna, leading ahead of two Hyundais.
Feature image credit: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool
The action got underway on Friday morning, the first of the three days of competition on sun-soaked Italian gravel. However, it was not smooth sailing for half the pack as the top-tier Rally1 class suffered five retirements on the opening day.
M-Sport Ford endured the worst of the drama as Joshua McErlean and Gregoire Munster retired after stage two (Calangianus-Berchidda) with a broken suspension, whereas Martins Sesks rolled out into retirement as he caught a wire fence.
After the morning loop, Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux led the pack by 2.9s over teammate Thierry Neuville and Ogier.
On the second pass of the Calangianus-Berchidda stage, the drama resumed as Neuville clipped a bank and retired with damage. Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta and Ford’s Jourdan Serderidis both rolled their respective machinery on a slow hairpin, but both were able to continue on.
Staying out of trouble, after the sixth stage of the event, Ogier found himself in the lead, 2.1 seconds ahead of Fourmaux.
How did the first day end?
Ogier is the current rally leader, with an elapsed time of 1 hour, 10 minutes and 33.1 seconds, 2.1 seconds ahead of the two Hyundais of Fourmaux and Tanak, with the latter only 7.3 seconds behind the leading time.
The remaining Toyotas round out the top 10 with Sami Pajari leading Kalle Rovanpera, Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta in fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh.
The last of the running Rally1 contenders, Serderidis sits 37th overall, 12 minutes behind Ogier.
This means the supporting WRC2 class have rounded out the remaining three positions inside the top 10 with Nikolay Gryazin leading Emil Lindholm and Yohan Rossel in eighth, ninth and 10th.
Read more WRC here:
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- Evans takes overnight WRC Rally Portugal lead
- Entry List revealed: 2025 WRC Rally Portugal
- EA reaches the ‘end of the road’ with WRC.
- Rovanpera wins WRC Rally Islas Canarias ahead of Ogier and Evans
- Rovanpera claims victory in WRC Rally Islas Canarias
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Hi, I’m Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion.
I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I’ve loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
Kamron Kent
Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.
