The 2024 Rally Di Sardegna Is A New Format Compact Event, But It Could Prove To Be Trickier Than Usual

Milan, 28 May 2024 | 15:38 Europe/Amsterdam THE 2024 RALLY DI SARDEGNA IS A NEW FORMAT COMPACT EVENT, BUT IT COULD PROVE TO BE TRICKIER THAN USUAL There will be 16 special stages rather than the traditional 20 with some being repeated in the same sectionThe new hard compound gravel Scorpion will be the primeTestoni: “With this interesting new format, tyre management will be even more important than usual” PreviewSardegna01 PreviewSardegna02 PreviewSardegna03 Rally Italia Sardegna is the sixth round of the world championship and this year, it returns to Alghero, but in a more compact version, very different compared to past events, with 16 special stages instead of the usual 20, covering a total of 266.12 timed kilometres. There will in fact only be three days of competition, from Friday to Sunday, with the shakedown at the start of the first day, close to the first four special stages in the afternoon. That’s not the only change, as the stages will be repeated in the same section of the rally, as a result of which there will be no service or tyre changing before the repeat runs, by which time the cars and tyres will have already been subjected to a lot of stress. These changes,have been welcomed by the Sardegna Rally organisers, the ACI, at the suggestion of the WRCP and the FIA, as an experiment to make the rally more accessible and exciting for the spectators. They will have a quite a profound effect on the severity of the stages, which have always been challenging for drivers, cars and tyres. What makes the Rally Sardegna demanding is always the hard and uneven road surfaces in the north of the island, which become even rougher on the second pass, when the fine and slippery dust has been swept away. Complicating matters still further is the heat, with temperatures that can exceed the 30 degree mark.THE CHALLENGECompetitors will have to pay particular attention to the first stage, Tergu-Osilo, which will be longer than in the past and therefore likely to be one of the toughest of the entire season, with tyre management playing a key role. No less taxing will be the Tula SS, because of it many changes of pace from slow to fast, with a bumpy surface on narrow roads and the classic Monte Lerno, famous for its tricky jumps.Tackling this challenge along with the crews will be the new Pirelli gravel tyres that performed well on their debut in the Portuguese Rally and feature a new construction, which ensures even greater durability and resistance than the previous generation, while their performance characteristics remain the same.In Sardinia the hard compound Scorpion KX WRC HB will be the prime and the soft compound Scorpion KX WRC SB will be the option.PIRELLI QUOTETerenzio Testoni, rally activity manager: “The changes introduced for this year’s Rally di Sardegna are noteworthy and very interesting and place the organisers at the forefront in terms of experimenting with a new rally format, at the behest of the Promoter and the FIA, which will probably become the standard one in the future. It means that this edition of the Sardegna rally will presumably be even more challenging and will require the drivers to be even more attentive than usual, especially when it comes to tyre management. We know that it’s when repeating the same stages that they are at their trickiest and having to do so without changing tyres means that sensible use of the tyres will play a key role.”THE TYRES IN SARDINIAFor the Rally1 cars, the regulations stipulate an allocation of 28 and 8 for the prime and option respectively. The crews can increase the number of options to 12, which entails reducing the primes by 4.As for the other categories in Sardinia, the Rally2 cars will be supplied with the new K4C (hard), which share the same development characteristics as the new Rally1 gravel tyres and the Scorpion K6B (soft). The Rally3 entries will use the K4A (hard) and K6A (soft). For these car categories, the allocation is 26 prime and 8 option, the numbers of the latter can be increased by the crews to 12, but they must reduce the number of prime tyres by 4.