Teemu Suninen claims second WRC2 win of the season at the Rally Italia Sardegna as ŠKODA Fabia R5 cars pack the top of the leaderboard. The sixth round of the World Rally Championship proved to be yet another fruitful event for the ŠKODA Fabia R5 teams with a fourth successive victory secured in the WRC2 championship and four of the top 5 spots occupied by Fabia R5 cars.
The winners at the Rally Italia Sardegna were the Finnish pairing of Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula, who claimed their second win of the season by a margin of almost 50 seconds and moved up to third in the WRC2 overall standings.
They had led from the start before a puncture on Friday saw them fall back and handed the advantage to the ŠKODA Italia Motorsport’s team of Umberto Scandola/Guido D’Amore, who were looked to make the most of their home advantage.
Sadly for them, on Saturday morning they too fell victim to a puncture, before being forced to retire. After their fellow Finns and ŠKODA Motorsport drivers Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm suffered a crash, Suninen never looked back and cruised to the win.
“There’re always some aspects that you can improve on, but everything went well. I’m really happy with the win,” Teemu Suninen said after the rally. “The car behaved perfectly well and we were in the lead up until the flat tyre. It’s not an easy position to be in when you have to come back to the first place again but we stayed confident. It’s impressive to see what we can do now and the results we can achieve! It’s a fantastic outcome.”
There were plenty more great performaces behind Suninen too. It was the ŠKODA Motorsport pairing of Jan Kopecký/Pavel Dresler finishing in second place, while the BRR Team pairing of Armin Kremer/Pirmin Winklhofer drove the tricky conditions perfectly to avoid trouble and eventually claim fourth place.
“Our tactics worked well,” said Armin Kremer afterwards. “We knew it was going to be a very tough rally and we didn’t take risks. The bottom line we can be very satisfied with 4th place.”
Behind them in fifth place in the WRC2 standings were the French pairing of Julien Maurin/Olivier Ural.
Meanwhile, Peruvian driver Nicholás Fuchs and his Argentinian co-driver Fernando Mussano were also in the mix throughout and sat in third spot on the Saturday evening. But a spectacular crash on the Sunday morning saw them roll their ŠKODA Fabia R5 and miss out on the chance to take the lead in the WRC2 championship standings, having finished first and second in the last two rallies.
The WRC2 action now moves onto the Rally Poland, which will take place from 30th June to 3rd July.
