Edition 2020 of the Rally Italia Sardegna will take place from October 8th to 11th. The itinerary is a remake of the original one presented in February.
The Rally Italia Sardegna will take place next October 8-11 2020 in a period that is still great to visit Sardinia. The itinerary is going to be slightly shorter than in the past, as agreed with FIA. Due to the autumn period the timetable is going to be different and stages will begin early in the morning and will also end a lot earlier in the evening. The stages did not change much though, the novelty is Tempio and then Tula, Castelsardo, Monte Lerno and Coiluna have been confirmed. The Osilo-Tergu will be inverted, compared to the usual format. The power stage in Argentiera, Cala Flumini and Monte Baranta have also been confirmed, while the shakedown will take place in Olmedo early on Thursday afternoon.
Day one will take place on Friday and will include 100 km competitive, the second will be on Saturday and will span 100 km competitive too, while the closing day will feature 60 km competitive on Sunday. As usual, service park will take place halfway through the days at the touristic harbour of Alghero.
Olbia will not be present but it was impossible to run the special stage in the darkness on Thursday evening, as a more compact schedule will also allow fans to watch a good number of stages – three or four per day. The hope is that the rally can take place with fans and not behind closed doors. All the rest will be as in the past, in the wait for the evolution of the Covid-19 in Italy. Regarding day-times, in June the daylight goes from 5 to 21.30, in October the sun will rise just before 7.30 but darkness will fall around 18.30.
In the morning there will be more than one hour less of light, four less in the evening. The daylight sorter by 5 hours required a revision of the timetable. Starting a stage before 17 would expose to the risk that drivers will have to run in the darkness and on dry gravel it is better to run in the daylight. Average speed in transfers in Italy are limited to 50kmh and do not allow for more. If they were 80 kmh as in other rallies a lot of things would have changed as transfers between service park and stages would have been a lot faster.