Oliver Solberg, who took his first World Cup victory a month ago, leads the WRC3 class.

The 19-year-old is also the fastest of all drivers in R5 cars and is in tenth place overall, all categories included.  

Solberg, who is running the Italian gravel competition for the first time, opened extremely strong, seventh best time on the first leg, faster than WRC drivers Thierry Neuville and Ott Tänak.

During the service break after four distances, Solberg was the fastest among the R5 cars and thus also in the lead in the WRC3 class, 7.8 seconds ahead of the Frenchman Yohan Rossel.

- What a wonderful day!

We lead Rally Italia after day one.

This is our first time in Sardinia.

We came here to gain experience and to learn these paths and this position is incredible, says Solberg in a press release.

The first day included six special distances totaling 95.25 km and after today's stage, Solberg leads his class with the Frenchman Rossel close behind.

6.4 seconds separates the top duo. 

- Oliver continues his unlikely development curve!

Wins the first leg in a "new" car and in a new rally superior.

In addition, one of the most difficult, crooked, narrowest, most technical distances in the entire WC series, says SVT's expert Jonas Kruse.

Strong start by championship leader Tidemand 

Pontus Tidemand and map reader Patrik Barth won the latest World Cup competition in Turkey and seem to have preserved their form well.

Tidemand, who has never ridden Italia Rally Sardegna before, has started very stably and has been among the three fastest drivers in his class on all of today's six distances.

In the morning he shadowed Adrien Fourmaux who took an early lead but the Frenchman got a puncture in the afternoon and lost time. 

Tidemand leads WRC2 and has a lead of 31.9 seconds to Fourmaux.



- Luckily we have managed without problems and the car works well.

We can definitely find more speed, but it is difficult to give those last ten percent when everything is new, but we will do our best to defend our position tomorrow, Tidemand says in a press release.

Kristensson heads the JWRC

Swedish management also in JWRC, junior WC class, through Tom Kristensson.

Kristensson, who is third in the championship before this competition, took three distance victories out of six possible on Friday and together with the map reader Joakim Sjöberg has a lead of 50.3 seconds.

Championship leader Martin Sesk broke for the day after driving off a drive shaft.

WRC

Dani Sordo won in Sardinia last year and the Spaniard who makes only his second start in this year's World Cup series tops the WRC class, 17.4 seconds ahead of the Finn Teemu Suninen who was also on the podium here last year.

Third is Thierry Neuville.

Tomorrow, six special sections await and SVT broadcasts live from several of the sections on Saturday.