The Italian rally truly deserves its reputation as a challenging event. Besides the scorching heat, technically challenging stages with varying surfaces were waiting for the crews. That’s why finding the right settings took them longer than usual. ŠKODA Motorsport deployed the same roster as in Portugal: the Czech crew of Jan Kopecký/Pavel Dresler and Finnish duo of Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen. In their Portuguese debut, they took the first two places both in WRC 2 Pro category and in the whole RC2 class. Now it was time to show that it was more than just luck.
On Sardinia, the advantages of the FABIA R5’s new generation continued to shine through. Thanks to better handling and even more rugged construction, the drivers could keep up their speed even in challenging conditions and still have a good safety margin. As in Portugal, they were consistently among the top drivers, successfully avoiding problems and gradually moving up the standings. When Rovanperä and Kopecký finally took the first two places in the RC2 overall standings, they managed to keep them until the very end.
