At Rally Italia Sardegna, the crew of Robert Virves and Jakko Viilo confirmed that they fully deserved this year’s WRC2 title. In a rally where punctures played a major role in shaping the results, the Estonian crew, after a heroic chase, finished second. Driving a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2, they were just seven tenths of a second behind the winning crew.
Had the final 7.1-kilometre super special stage been even one kilometre longer, the outcome of Rally Italia Sardegna might have been different. Even so, Robert Virves and Jakko Viilo once again demonstrated the excellent form they have shown throughout this season.
Virves, who had already secured the WRC2 title before the final event of this year’s FIA World Rally Championship season, had his share of bad luck on Friday. Initially, he was still searching for the right pace on the demanding gravel stages. Then, punctures on stages 4 and 5 each cost him approximately one and a half minutes. However, Virves refused to be discouraged by the setbacks and immediately bounced back by pushing hard on the following two Friday special stages.
While he dropped to tenth place in the WRC2 standings after the unfortunate fifth stage, he gained one position on each of the next stages and ended Friday’s leg of the programme in eighth place overall. At that point, however, a deficit of almost three minutes gave little indication that he would be fighting for a podium finish, let alone for victory.
On Saturday, the Estonian crew cut back almost a minute from their rivals´ lead and moved up to fifth place in the provisional WRC2 standings. During the four concluding stages on Sunday, Virves produced an astonishing turn of speed. This time, misfortune struck some of his rivals and the battle at the front became extremely close. While Virves was third after Saturday’s second stage and the rally’s fifteenth stage overall, trailing the leader by 1 minute 26 seconds, he had reduced the gap to leader Korhonen to just 6.8 seconds by the end of the penultimate special stage.
Only the aforementioned 7.1 kilometres of the final Power Stage remained. Virves completed it faster than any other driver in the WRC category, setting a time of 5 minutes 18.9 seconds. Korhonen was 6.1 seconds slower, which meant that he ultimately managed to retain first place by only 0.7 seconds. Even so, Virves capped off a remarkable season in which he scored four victories, and two second-place finishes from seven starts. He therefore deservedly claimed both the WRC2 and WRC2 Challenger titles.
Other Škoda crews also delivered excellent performances in Italy. Home crew Roberto Daprà and Luca Guglielmetti finished fifth overall. Last year’s winners experienced a frightening moment on Saturday when their Delta Rally Team Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 went straight on at a surprisingly slippery corner and left the road. “It was difficult to reverse and get back onto the track. I also thought we´d suffered a puncture, but fortunately that was not the case,” revealed Roberto Daprà.
Three more Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 crews finished inside the top ten. Alejandro Mauro and Carla Salvat claimed seventh place, while the home crews Simone Romagna/Dino Lamonato and Giovanni Trentin/Pietro Elia Ometto finished ninth and tenth respectively.
In total, nine Škoda crews finished inside the top fifteen. Miguel Granados and Marc Martí ended the rally just outside the overall WRC2 top ten and were therefore the fastest crew in the WRC Masters Cup category. With this victory, they successfully defended the title they won last year, despite arriving at the event second in the provisional standings.
Third place overall in the category was secured by another Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 driver, Turkish competitor Uğur Soylu.
