The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team aims to continue the winning run of the GR YARIS Rally1 at Rally Italia Sardegna on June 2-5: The second part of a double-header on rough and rocky gravel roads in southern Europe.

The trip to the Mediterranean island of Sardinia comes hot on the heels of last week's Rally de Portugal, where the team claimed a one-two finish in the first gravel event of the hybrid Rally1 era. After three consecutive wins on three different surfaces, Kalle Rovanperä leads the championship by 46 points, with Elfyn Evans up to fifth in the standings after taking second place in Portugal. Esapekka Lappi returns to action in Sardinia where he finished on the podium with the team in 2018. Takamoto Katsuta will once more line up for TGR WRT Next Generation, having climbed to third in the points when he narrowly missed out on a podium in Portugal.

Sardinia's stages are characterised by fast but narrow tracks which are lined with bushes, trees and rocks, leaving little margin for error. The sandy surface gets swept away by each passing car to expose a rocky and abrasive base, which can combine with some of the highest temperatures of the season to provide a tough test for cars and tyres.

The service park returns to the seafront in Alghero on the island's northwest after one year in Olbia in the east, which will still hold the start of the rally on Thursday evening complete with a new mixed-surface super special stage. Friday and Saturday are made up of familiar roads from recent years, with one pair of stages run to be run twice in the morning before another two tests are repeated in the afternoon. Saturday's leg will be tackled without a midday service, which has been replaced by a tyre fitting zone. For Sunday's conclusion there's a comeback after a year's absence for the Cala Flumini and Sassari - Argentiera stages on the coast north of Alghero, with the latter once again hosting the rally-ending Power Stage.

Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
"Portugal was a fantastic first event on gravel for the GR YARIS Rally1 and the team can go to Sardinia knowing it has built a fast and reliable car. But we know it won't be easy to achieve a similar result. In Sardinia we can expect higher temperatures and the road surface is harder with lots of loose rocks. The road-sweeping effect is usually greater and will probably penalise us more than it did in Portugal. But Kalle is obviously in incredible form at the moment and I'm sure that Elfyn will also feel a boost to his confidence after his drive last weekend. Finally, Esapekka returns to our line-up and has gone well in Sardinia in the past, so with a good road position I'm sure he will be fast too."

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Toyota Motor Corporation published this content on 27 May 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 27 May 2022 08:06:25 UTC.