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It’s pretty clear that the gearboxes of the cars in the WRC are not destined to last for 200 kilometres of stages, especially given their rough and unforgiving terrain. M-Sport’s Ott Tänak was forced to retire with a gearbox issue, as was Robert Kubica, and former rally leader Hayden Paddon was seen looking emotional at the end of SS18 after Hyundai reported issues with his i20’s gearbox.
 Rally de Sardegna hasn’t been particularly kind to the WRC drivers today, and only eight made it to the final stage of the day; SS19, the second running of Monte Lerno, is a mammoth 42.22km long. Meeke set the third quickest time on SS19, and treated the day as a learning process. “It’s been a learning day, but an interesting one.” said Meeke. “I enjoyed the stages this afternoon, even with the slow-shifting gearbox.” Ogier, our rally leader at the end of the day, finished SS19 comfortably after taking care of his tyres and his Polo. “Two fantastic days for me. I never said leading was impossible, but I knew my chances were very small.” he said at the stage end. “A lot of things have happened today. It’s been very rough this afternoon. This one was better and I could really enjoy it.” With a comfortable buffer of 2:13.6 over Paddon, our double World Champion almost certainly has Rally de Sardegna in the bag. Ostberg has been a mixed bag in terms of performance today, and took a slow puncture home with him at the end of SS19. “A slow puncture again. Earlier it was a valve coming out. Maybe that’s happened again. Maybe just bad luck.” said Ostberg. “I’m not thinking about it [the battle with Paddon]. I’m doing my own thing – just trying to keep track of my punctures.” Evans hasn’t had much luck on these Sardinian stages, but he finishes the day in fifth position and took home the fourth quickest stage time. “It’s all ended okay. No risks for us in this stage, we’re just being careful and looking at all the drama around us.” Evans said. Latvala went into SS19 with a broken damper and came out with a puncture to boot. “I can smile because we managed to do so many kilometres with broken suspension, and we should still finish in the top six.” he said happily at the stage end. Neuville set the second quickest stage time, 4.3 seconds slower than Ogier, and said concisely “A difficult day, but I can be happy with my own driving.” He finishes the day in fourth place, and is 31.4 seconds behind Ostberg, so we could be in for an interesting fight on tomorrow’s four final stages. Paddon was seen working on his i20 ahead of the stage, alongside his co-driver John Kennard, and limped through the entirety of SS19. ‘I thought it was all gone. We hit a big rock, I thought there’d be no way we’d get it here.’ said Paddon at the stage end. ‘I don’t want to be a drama queen, but the last stage ripped my heart out. Okay, we’ve got to get back to service, but we’re so pleased to be here.’ Al Qassimi finished the stage 0.8 seconds behind Paddon, and sits in 11th place overall. Meanwhile, in WRC2, Al Rajhi set the eighth quickest stage time overall, 10.5s slower than his WRC2 competitor Jan Kopecky. Protasov, who has been on a major push all day, finished 11.2s behind Al Qassimi, but sits in seventh place overall and 1st in WRC2, with Paolo Andreucci 7s behind him. Kopecky finishes the day in third place, with Al Rajhi finishing in fourth. Nasser Al-Attiyah set the fastest stage time in WRC2, and ends his day eighth, with Al-Kuwari ahead of him by 43.4 seconds. All of the drivers will agree, without a shadow of a doubt, that it’s a huge relief that Day Two of Rally de Sardegna 2015 is over. Now, it’s back to service and to bed, before regrouping and launching a full assault on the final stages tomorrow morning. Story: iRallylive.com
Top fifteen end day three
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S. OGIER
H. PADDON
M. OSTBERG
J. ANDERSSON
T. NEUVILLE
E. EVANS
J. LATVALA
Y. PROTASOV
P. ANDREUCCI
J. KOPECKY
Y. AL RAJHI
K. AL QASSIMI
C. PATTERSON
N. FUCHS
F. MUSSANO
A. KREMER
A. AL-KUWARI