Crews faced significantly reduced visibility on Friday’s opening stage (Stage 2) of the Italian gravel rally caused by a combination of reduced starting intervals and lingering dust.
Rally1 entries were split by three minute intervals, a minute less compared to Rally Portugal last month, due to a packed itinerary in Sardinia.
Championship leader Kalle Rovanpera was the only driver unaffected, being first on the road, but behind his rivals were forced to back off in places to avoid accidents due to the dust.
Overnight leader Thierry Neuville was the first to confront the conditions he described as “really dangerous”, while revealing the issue of dust was raised with the FIA and rally organisers before the rally began.
“There is no visibility at all, we lost up to 10-15 seconds in the dust, we had to slow down completely,” said Neuville.
“It was known before and we mentioned it to the FIA and to the organisers before the rally.
“In the recce we had dust with three or four minute gaps, but nobody wants to listen so obviously live tv and itinerary, everything is too tight and every year it is a shame.
“At the end for the day it is really dangerous for the drivers.”
Neuville’s view was shared by his rivals with Takamoto Katsuta agreeing the conditions were dangerous.
“The problem is we can’t see anything because of the dust,” said Katsuta. “I don’t know why it is three minutes like this and not four minutes in Portugal. It is not really nice to be honest, it is quite dangerous to be honest.”
M-Sport’s Crag Breen admitted he had to stop at intervals to ensure he reached the stage end without incident.
“I can’t see I stopped every five or six hundred metres, maybe the guys that did the stage last year have gone better but I can’t see,” said Breen.
“I was putting the car off the road in places because there was a wall of dust in front of me, there was absolutely nothing I can do.”
Toyota’s Elfyn Evans set the fastest time in the stage but was unsure how he managed to achieve the time due to the poor visibility.
“I don’t know [how I did that] I couldn’t see a lot, It was really bad, every year the same,” said Evans.
While Hyundai’s Ott Tanak added: "The visibility is difficult. This stage is a killer for this and it's very challenging at the moment.”
Despite the conditions, the stage win for Evans moved the Welshman into a 4.7s lead over Tanak, while M-Sport’s Pierre-Louis Loubet shot to third a further three tenths back, as Thursday’s leader Neuville slipped back to eighth.
Crews will tackle a further seven stages today.
