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Rally Italia Sardegna: all set for the Italian round of the WRC

Only a few hours to go until the start of the Italian leg of the 2024 World Championships

30 May 2024

3' min read

The 21st edition of Rally Italia Sardegna is about to get underway with plenty of hot news. Winding back the tape, twenty years ago at this time Rally Italia Sardegna was still an unfinished event, as the race was first run in October 2004. So it will be an edition linked to tradition, but one that compared to the recent past presents some changes with several remakes..

Rally Italia Sardegna: all the news

The main novelty of the 21st edition will be the return of the event's base in Alghero, while the most important one concerns its route with a compact format, based on a derogation that Sardinia obtained from the FIA, in order to run and test a more concentrated event format. A total of no less than 34 different nationalities will be represented: a new record for the event, confirming its internationality, and demonstrating how the world rally is an important stage that promotes Sardinia around the world.

There will be a large representation of 21 Italian crews (of which eight are Sardinians), followed by the French with nine entries, five Spaniards, four Finns and Estonians, with all the others to follow.

Programme of Rally Italia Sardegna

The adventure of Rally Italia Sardegna 2024 starts today with the starting ceremony and the town parade in Alghero, and then continues on Friday 31 with the shakedown in Ittiri scheduled at 8.01am, and the actual start of the race in the afternoon at 1.30pm with the start of the first stage. The conclusion is scheduled for Sunday 2 June at around 13.00 after the classic power stage of Sassari Argentiera, which has always given many twists and turns.

The route covers 1,027.90 kilometres, of which 266.12 are special stages and no less than 761.78 are transfers.

It will be a race that, from the forecasts, will put crews and cars to the test given the weather and the absence of precipitation for some time. A lot of dust is therefore expected as the cars pass through.

In addition, in order to make the level of the event even more difficult, the organisers have opted for a programme that provides for a 45-minute service park only at the end of the Friday and Saturday stages. It will therefore be the crews who will have to make interventions on the cars if necessary.

History of Rally Italia Sardegna

In the 20 editions held so far, Rally Italia Sardegna took place from 2004 to 2013 with the event's base in the Gallura region of Olbia. Then from 2014 to 2020 it moved to the north-west of the island to Alghero, with the Catalan town that had the great merit of giving new life to the tricolour round. Thanks above all to the prestigious location of the service park in the tourist harbour, the most beautiful in the world championship, and then for the Argentiera power stage, the winners' plunge into the waters of the harbour, and finally for the great public turnout at the service park given the greater population in that area of the island. But rallies with a capital 'r' were born in Sardinia in Gallura at the end of the 1970s in 1978, with the legendary International Rally of the Costa Smeralda and its historic location at the Porto Cervo wharf. To which Olbia, thanks to the far-sightedness of its mayor Settimo Nizzi, had had the merit of flanking, ever since the first edition of the world stage held in 2004. A location that had been proposed again two years ago in 2021 and then last year, and that had offered greater proximity to the special events of Monte Acuto and upper and lower Gallura. Sardinian regional policy has established the principle of alternating between Alghero and Olbia, but the world championship 'made in Sardinia' wherever it is run will always offer a spectacle not to be missed, given the exceptional selectivity and beauty of its dirt tracks, which are truly unique in the world.