RALLY SARDINIA, POST-RECCES ANALYSIS CONFIRMS TANTARILES AS THE KEY STAGE OF THE WEEKEND

The rain that has been falling since yesterday on northern Sardinia and threatens to continue tomorrow, at least in the afternoon, is creating unexpected questions for the teams and posing new challenges for the drivers. However, the substance does not change much: even after the recces of the Pirelli engineers, the test in Tantariles promises to be the decisive one for the victory, just as it was in 2004, when Petter Solberg on a Pirelli-tyred Subaru won. The first stage on Friday, in fact, will be the most difficult of the weekend, both because of the type of road surface, enormously bumpy and full of stones and fords, and because of the rain that will risk creating deep ruts after the first passage.

The analysis carried out by Pirelli's engineers also shows that  drivers have to keep an eye on:

• The Monte Lerno test of almost 50 kilometres, which promises to be particularly demanding more for its length than for the characteristics of the road surface
• The Tula test, almost 22 kilometres long, which promises to be very bumpy and strewn with stones
• Sunday's particularly sandy stages

Given the weather, the Rally 1 drivers opted to have the maximum amount of soft tyres at their disposal, in order to cope better with the wet and slippery surfaces. The hard tyres, which are the first as always for this rally and which will be subject to less wear in these conditions, promise reliability even on surfaces with less grip.

Below the day-by-day analysis tables

PIRELLI TYRES IN SARDINIA
The tyres available in Sardinia are:

Scorpion KX WRC: Pirelli's off-road tyre, developed for the top category, is available for Rally1 cars in two compounds, both in evolution 2022, which features reinforced structures and an optimised design. For Sardinia, the HA hard compound version, which offers greater durability and resistance to the most abrasive surfaces with the most grip, is the first. The SA soft compound version, which guarantees optimum grip even on slippery surfaces, is the option.

 The regulations provide for an allocation of 24 and eight tyres respectively for prime and option, to which four must be added for the shakedown, in the compound chosen by the crew. All crews opted for 24 prime and 12 option.

Scorpion K: the gravel tyres for WRC2 and WRC3 are also available in hard and soft compounds, with many of the same characteristics as the KXs for the Rally1 cars. In Sardinia, Rally2 cars have K4B (hard) and K6B (soft) tyres, while Rally3 cars have K4A (hard) and K6A (soft).

For these car categories, the allocations are 22 and 8 tyres for the prime and option respectively, to which must be added a set for the shakedown.