Elfyn Evans and Daniel Barritt started their Rally Italia Sardegna well and were just 0.5 seconds adrift of the lead after the opening Super Special.
Unfortunately, they would only get two more stages under their belt. Caught-out by a dip after a tightening corner on the first pass of Tula (SS4), the pairing slid off the road and sustained damaged the front-right suspension of their Ford Fiesta WRC.
Returning to the stages under Rally 2 regulations, Evans focused on racking up the kilometres. Having missed out on valuable data through the opening speed tests, the Welshman tasked himself with delivering a clean run through the remaining kilometres so as to collect vital information for future development.