Neuville reels in Ogier to win by 0.7s!

Top 15 WRC Rally Italia Sardegna results

Thierry Neuville has pulled off a thrilling victory at Rally Italia Sardegna taking the overall lead for the first time on the Power Stage by just 0.7s from World Rally Championship rival Sebastien Ogier.

Having seen Ogier lead the overall classification for the majority of the event, the M-Sport Ford driver came under threat from Neuville who started a late charge on Saturday afternoon’s second loop.

It was a flawless performance over Sunday’s final four stages, Neuville claimed a clean-sweep of stage wins which saw him cut the deficit to a marginal 0.8s on Ogier for the Power Stage. With Neuville’s Power Stage win he won by 0.7s to claim maximum points for Hyundai, taking the overall classification lead for the first time at Rally Italia Sardegna.

It marks a significant WRC title charge for Neuville who extends his championship lead on Ogier to 27 points with six rounds remaining. With Ogier having to settle for second place, Toyota’s Esapekka Lappi claimed his first podium of the year in third place but almost two minutes off the leaders.

Lappi had been set for a final-day fight with Toyota teammate Jari-Matti Latvala but he suffered a broken alternator at the end of SS16 to drop out of contention.

Latvala’s issue promoted Hyundai’s Hayden Paddon into fourth place with lead Citroen driver Mads Ostberg completing the top five.

Craig Breen claimed a comfortable sixth place with Latvala having to take seventh place but over a minute ahead of teammate Ott Tanak who had also dropped out of contention earlier in the rally with damaged cooling.

Jan Kopecky comfortably won the WRC2 class for Skoda with ninth place overall as M-Sport Ford’s Teemu Suninen rounded out the points places after restarting under Rally 2 rules.