Motorsport
Expert Opinion: Is Rally Sardinia Hyundai’s best opportunity for a WRC victory yet?
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Sardinia’s rough gravel roads are the next stop for the World Rally Championship this weekend as the season edges closer to its halfway point.
Sixteen rough and demanding stages, often held in blistering Mediterranean heat that will test teams and machines to the limit, lie in wait.
Toyota remains the team to beat as it extended its 100% winning start to 2025 with Sebastien Ogier denying Hyundai’s Ott Tanak a likely victory in Portugal last month. Elfyn Evans continues to lead the championship but his advantage has been reduced to 30 points over Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanpera.
However, Sardinia has proved to be a happy hunting ground for Hyundai having only been defeated twice since 2016 on the Italian island. With road position set to hamper the likes of Evans, Rovanpera and Ogier, is this time for Hyundai to strike?
To find out, DAZN spoke to legendary WRC television commentator Becs Williams for an expert opinion on the form book.
Is this Hyundai’s best chance yet to kick start its season?
WRC
“It is not if they can do it, they [Hyundai] have to do it. This is their island really based on statistics and they should be coming here feeling confident. I think they should take confidence from the performance in Portugal.
"The only concern is the reliability because the pace was certainly there in Portugal and Tanak proved that, but it is whether the car can last the duration of the rally. That is probably now the concern moving forward especially as Sardinia is a lot rougher than Portugal.
“I think road position is going to be one of the key factors, and for poor Elfyn Evans he is going to get completely shafted here.
"The rally has been won from the front of the field but again if we look at his performance in Portugal it is like a repeat of last year as soon as he got to these gravel rallies, his season started to flounder a little and you have to hope that is not going to be the case.
“For Hyundai, road position will be a strength with Tanak, Neuville and Adrien Fourmaux starting fourth, fifth and seventh on the road. The performance from Portugal and the history books are all pointing in their direction so it is like a cosmic alignment right now.
"They have to make the best of it and capitalise on everything because they are going to start to run out of time very soon, we are almost at the halfway point. Thierry Neuville’s record here is superb (three wins) and one of the best ever victories he has ever had over Sebastian Ogier came here.
"Hyundai have such a history here it should inspire them. I think the inspiring thing was the performance of the cars in Portugal with all the work they have done with the chassis with the upgrades, and on gravel it looked good.”
Ogier can never been ruled out in Sardinia
WRC
"You can very rule Sebastien Ogier out and I think what is interesting is he is here and he will be in Greece again and these are events I didn’t expect him to be doing in his partial season.
"Ogier and this island have a positive history with four wins (2013-2015,2021) and it has been done from first on the road from him in 2021.
"I think the only thing I would say is something he brought up in Portugal, was that when it was coming to the battle and trying to catch the drivers in front, albeit Tanak at the time, he wasn’t prepared to take the extra risk.
"He suggested that he is older and not taking the ultimate risk. I think that is a factor here, but he still seems to achieve.”
Who is your pick for the victory?
WRC
“I’m going to be really bold and go for Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux. He was so good in Portugal. I’m gong to say this is the one [where he scores his first win], as he has unfinished business here. He was leading in WRC2 two years ago when he put it off in the wet, but he had done so superbly well all weekend and then it fell apart.
“He has unfinished business on this island and I feel this season we have seen that outright pace, but we have seen things go wrong for him. I’m hoping he can put the balance of mechanical sympathy with outright speed and be able to achieve his first WRC victory. He has got all the components, he just need to put them all together.”
Can Josh McErlean continue to lead the M-Sport-Ford charge?
WRC
“It was really good to see Josh’s pace in Portugal and it was a really good confidence boost for him to see what he was achieving stage by stage, and know he was the leading M-Sport driver, finishing eighth.
“He is coming on in leaps and bounds and he has surprised a lot of people this year. I think he is changing people’s perceptions of what can be achieved. M-Sport are still going to have a tough run against the others, so for him it is about trying to be the best M-Sport driver out there.
"Obviously it is going to be a difficult run against Martins Sesks and Gregoire Munster, but I think Josh has the capability to do it because he is giving mechanical sympathy to that car and his mechanical knowledge as well. He has been able to give good feedback on set up changes to the engineers and mechanics.
"I think he understands the car far better than we anticipated at this point of the season.”
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