Neuville snatches Rally Italia Sardegna lead on day two final stage

Neuville snatches Rally Italia Sardegna lead on day two final stage

3rd October 2026 0 By Kamron Kent

Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville stands as the World Rally Championship’s Rally Italia Sardegna leader, having snatched the position at the end of Friday’s running.

Feature image credit: Jaanus Ree // Red Bull Content Pool

Neuville has taken over as the WRC’s season finale leader, beating his teammate, Adrien Fourmaux, to the top of the overall leaderboard on the final test of the day, and the seventh of the event, pipping the Frenchman by 0.4 seconds.

Fourmaux had taken the lead of the rally early on, from the third stage of the event and managed to extend his lead to a maximum of 8.2 seconds over Neuville on SS5 [Tula-Erula 2] before the Belgian world champion started to cut the deficit.

He finally managed to pip Fourmaux on the final stage of the day, having finished SS6, 4.7 seconds behind the Frenchman.

By the end of the day, Hyundai’s 2024 world champion topped the timing boards to lead a Hyundai 1-2 position, after Dani Sordo retired from day two having endured a painful start to his Italian event.

For Toyota, Oliver Solberg stands as the leading driver, behind the two Hyundai’s by 17.6 seconds. The Swede heads a Toyota quartet having led Sami Pajari, Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans in fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.

In light of that, Solberg is set to outscore the championship leader in the title fight, with all three drivers; Solberg, Pajari and Evans, inside the top 10. However, the advance would remain with Evans, putting the Welshman on course to take the title on Sunday.

Provisionally, Evans would reign victorious in the championship with a points total of 238 points, with Solberg and Pajari finishing the 2026 season on 224 and 223 points, respectively.

So, who finished where after day two at Rally Italia Sardegna?

Oliver Solberg lays down gauntlet at Rally Italia Sardegna

Day two classification

  1. Thierry Neuville, Hyundai – 1 hour, 25 minutes and 4.9 seconds. 
  2. Adrien Fourmaux, Hyundai +0.4s
  3. Oliver Solberg, Toyota +12.3s
  4. Sebastien Ogier, Toyota +37.4s
  5. Sami Pajari, Toyota +40.2s
  6. Elfyn Evans, Toyota +1m 8.9s
  7. Joshua McErlean, M-Sport Ford +1m 21.1s
  8. Jon Armstrong, M-Sport Ford +3m 36.5s
  9. Takamoto Katsuta, Toyota +3m 27.2s
  10. Martins Sesks, M-Sport Ford +3m 39.9s

Sordo finished the day in 25th, 14m 46.5 seconds off the pace having retired. 

Title standings

*** Based on provisional standings at Rally Italia Sardegna ***
  1. Elfyn Evans, Toyota – 238 points
  2. Oliver Solberg, Toyota – 224 (-14)
  3. Sami Pajari, Toyota – 223 (-15)

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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.

CategoryNews Rallying WRC

About the author

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.

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