Unfortunately, contrary to all expectations and hopes, the sixth stage of World Rally Championship began with unpleasant emotions for Eurolamp World Rally Team. On the first special stage of the race Valery Gorban and Vladimir Korsia had some technical problems.

After analyses of the data collected during the recce sessions and Thursday morning shakedown the team defined directions of arriving of some possible problems. First of all it was difficult and tricky race road.

«Road surface of Saturday part of the race is very close to surface that we used during pre-start training. It is good moment for us, because Saturday itinerary contains the most part of race distance. The other parts of the route are very different. It is very soft, dust-sand surface with very low grip. Moreover the race road is very narrow – time by time we will drive through real stone tunnels. So there is high probability to slip off the road and damage a car. In accord with that we will be making plans to our race strategy », – said Vladimir Korsia, Eurolamp WRT’s co-driver, before the start of the Rally Italia Sardegna.

Bad news came from unexpected side. Just at the start of the first special stage, Ittiri Arena Show, on MINI Cooper WRC of Valery Gorban and Vladimir Korsia a left front drive-shaft was broken. Fortunately the crew was able to finish the stage though they lost nearly 40 seconds.

There was an underplot which complicated the incident — the race itinerary didn’t include any service on Friday evening. Only the crew could do it was partial repair by themselves to get the car to parc ferme. The team was able to study out the reason of the problem and resolve it on Friday morning during 18-minutes service.