Tom Kristensson takes convincing lead on Saturday: Junior WRC

• Tom Kristensson extended his lead through Saturday’s six stages on Rally d’Italia Sardegna while also increasing his stage win points tally.

• Sami Pajari started the day in a short-lived second position, retiring on the opening stage of the day after breaking a driveshaft over a jump.

• Fabrizio Zaldivar now sits second and is on the cusp of taking his best result in FIA Junior WRC to date with a healthy gap to Martins Sesks in third.

Sesks went into the day fourth, but soon climbed to third following Pajari’s retirement on stage one where the Rally Estonia winner began his opening streak of stage wins, signing off stages two and three in the same fashion. The Latvian suffered a puncture on stage four, ending his mission to tick off every stage win of the loop and opted to bring the car home safely to service and hold his podium spot. He returned to form on the final pair of stages delivering back to back stage wins bringing his total stage win points to six for the rally which could prove crucial for the championship.

Kristensson had a fairly uneventful, but crucially consistent day, delivering safe and competitive stage times to finish Saturday with almost a nine-minute lead and one stage win.
Briton Ruairi Bell didn’t finish outside of the top-three on Saturday cementing his fourth position by building a comfortable three-minute gap to Enrico Oldrati. A stage win was on the cards on stage 12 until an untimely spin cost him that opportunity and ultimately meant he finished third. Should Bell maintain his position throughout the four remaining stages on Sunday, he will match his best finish in FIA Junior WRC yet.

Zaldivar’s opening loop was less than ideal in terms of pace with the South American claiming he went for a poor setup choice. He was able to keep his Fiesta Rally4 on the road though and hold second position.

Marco Pollara was able to get his rally back on track on Saturday, making it safely through every stage until SS12 where he broke his steering arm and retired. Pollara will restart the rally on Sunday for the final four stages of the rally.

Maciej Woda, FIA Junior WRC Team Director, said: “Today has delivered some interesting strategies and performances throughout the FIA Junior WRC field. Tom has delivered a level-headed performance and kept control of his lead as it is important for his championship hopes to take a good haul of classification points. Martins meanwhile has dominated in terms of stage wins today which in turn helps his championship campaign as all stage win points are counted towards the championship. It was a big shame for Sami and it is never easy to see a drive retire in such circumstances, I am looking forward to seeing what he will do tomorrow as it’s potentially damage limitation mode with four stage win points up for grabs.”

Tom Kristensson, rally leader, said:“Well it’s a crazy situation at the moment with the results but for sure we are really happy to be in the lead. I could not imagine the rally could be so tough and we would perform as well as we could have done. We are really satisfied, and tomorrow will also be a tough day but we will just take the car to the end and take home the victory.”