55 teams at the start for the World Championship, 44 for the Italian Championship
ALGHERO. With this morning’s shakedown, Thursday 3, in Loiri Porto San Paolo, near Olbia, the engines of the 99 crews started up at 9 o’clock and until Sunday they will battle in the Rally Italia Sardegna, with races valid for the FIA World Rally Championship (55 crews), and the Italian Rally Land and Rally Junior Championships (44 crews). After this morning’s test with the cars in race trim before the competition, the spotlights move to Alghero, where at 7 pm, from the Bastioni, there will be the ceremonial start of the Rally organized by the Automobile Club of Italy with the support of the Sardinia Region. Spectators will also be able to attend the race, to a limited extent due to anti-covid regulations. Tomorrow, at 5:45 am the cars will leave for the eight tests scheduled in the first stage (127.4 km) which will bring the cars to compete on the dirt roads of Gallura. The second stage (129.62 km) and third stage (46.08 km) will be held on Saturday and Sunday for a total of 20 special stages and 303 timed km on the 1,299.02 km of the overall route. All the big names of the World Championship will be present at the start of the race with 10 WRC Plus which will be entrusted to the three official Toyota drivers: Evans, Ogier and Rovanpera; Hyundai with Neuville, Tanak and Sordo and the two of Ford MSport which lines up Greensmith and Suninen. There will also be a fourth Yaris Wrc Plus entrusted to Takamoto Katsuta and the Hyundai i20 Wrc Plus for Pierre Louis Loubet. In the world championship race there were also two colors of the national ACI Team Italy, Alberto Battistolli with Simone Scattolin and Alessio Profeta with Sergio Raccuia, both on Skoda Fabia R5. (HANDLE).