Italy

WRC – Sardinia has been a staple of the WRC calendar since 2004, with a number of different winners over the years.

Sordo had lucked in – the steering jamming on Tänak’s car and dumping him all the way down to fifth place. Neuville had endured a tricky two years since his first win in 2014, but he rejuvenated his career momentum with his 2016 Rally Italy win. Tänak played the rally beautifully, slowly creeping up the leaderboard as his rivals began to flounder. Speak to Malcolm Wilson and he’ll remind you of that – Latvala needed this win for his confidence. Thierry Neuville’s two Sardinian victories came in very different circumstances. Loeb only graced the podium in Sardinia once when he didn’t win and that was on the WRC’s first visit to the Mediterranean island in 2004. Hayden Paddon then destroyed the rear-right corner of his i20 Coupe WRC to elevate Tänak into the lead; a position he’d protect over Latvala to the end despite a brief scare on the final day when he outbraked himself and was briefly in a hedge. But the first test on the final day gave Grönholm the break he needed to claim his first – and only – Italian victory in the WRC as Loeb went off and gave Grönholm a free run. And after losing victory in Portugal for a technical infringement, Hirvonen kept his cool and finally earned himself a Citroën win – the first and only of his career. Sardinia holds mixed memories for Ott Tänak as the scene of his first WRC podium in 2012 and then victory in 2017 with M-Sport but also of two lost wins in 2019 when his Toyota’s steering jammed and 2021 when his Hyundai’s suspension failed. The Subaru driver beat eventual world champion Sébastien Loeb by over two minutes in his Subaru Impreza WRC to complete a remarkable hattrick of victories after successes in Japan and Wales that succeeded that terrifying crash on Rally Germany. But who have the most successful drivers been on the island in the WRC? Thanks to the wonderful resource that is eWRC-results, here’s a look at drivers that have conquered this island rally in the past, categorized in ascending order in terms of editions won.