Oliver Solberg takes over WRC Rally Italia Sardegna lead inching closer to title

Oliver Solberg takes over WRC Rally Italia Sardegna lead inching closer to title

3rd October 2026 0 By Kamron Kent

Toyota’s Oliver Solberg has taken over as the World Rally Championship’s Rally Italia Sardegna leader, edging close to Elfyn Evans’ championship lead.

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

Solberg has cut down his teammate’s championship lead to just four points on Saturday, having started the event 21 points behind the British crew, with Saturday’s afternoon stages and Super Sunday still remaining.

This comes as the championship contender took over as the rally leader on the final stage of Saturday’s morning loop, edging out ahead of Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville by 2.7 seconds.

Unable to make up ground, Evans finds himself down in sixth overall, behind his last championship contender, Sami Pajari, who sits fifth.

Neuville snatches Rally Italia Sardegna lead on day two final stage

Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux took a hit on Saturday morning, on the opening test, after the Frenchman suffered a puncture through the SS8. Fourmaux opted to drag his wounded i20N to the end of the stage, dropping over 50 seconds in the 24.14km course.

He started the day 0.4 seconds adrift of Neuville, who snatched the lead on Friday’s final stage. However, the Hyundai driver now finds himself down in fourth, 57.3 seconds adrift of the Solberg’s leading time. As a result, it also promoted two of Toyota’s championship contenders, Solberg and Sami Pajari, into second and fourth overall.

However, the Hyundai quickly snatched back a position to move up to fourth before Solberg moved into the lead. .

Provisionally, following the events of Saturday’s morning loop, the Welshman remains the points-leader and on course to take the title, with 238 points, but his lead has been cut down to four-points to Solberg, and a further 15 to Pajari.

Adrien Fourmaux takes blow to rally win chances at Rally Italia Sardegna

Hyundai also suffered an early retirement in the form of Daniel Sordo, who confirmed he was in pain with an rib issue. It is suspected it was a result of his shakedown crash.

After Lerno, as reported by Dirtfish, Sordo said:

“It’s really bad with my ribs, I can’t continue like this. It’s really painful under braking and impacts. I think I have something broken because I couldn’t drive. After the Shakedown crash it was more and more.

“It’s a lot of pain in my back and my side. I can’t concentrate.”

Day three mid-day standings

  1. Oliver Solberg, Toyota – 2hr 4m 0.9s
  2. Thierry Neuville, Hyundai +2.7s
  3. Sebastien Ogier, Toyota +39.9s
  4. Adrien Fourmaux, Hyundai +57.3s
  5. Sami Pajari, Toyota +1m 15.5s
  6. Elfyn Evans, Toyota +1m 57.7s
  7. Joshua McErlean, M-Sport Ford +2m 49.4s
  8. Takamoto Katsuta, Toyota +4m 52.7s
  9. Jon Armstrong, M-Sport Ford +5m 1.3s
  10. Martins Sesks, M-Sport Ford +5m 38s

Championship standings

  1. Elfyn Evans, Toyota – 238pts
  2. Oliver Solberg, Toyota – 234pts (-4)
  3. Sami Pajari, Toyota – 223pts (-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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