Rovanpera struggles in Sardinia with Red Bull.

Red Bull Skoda number one driver, Harri Rovanpera endured a bitterly disappointing outing with the Austrian based squad on the Rally d'Italia Sardegna over the weekend, as he made his gravel debut with the Fabia WRC.

The Finn, who crashed in pre-event testing, never really got in the groove and although he was classified at the finish, taking 20th position and one manufacturers' point, he had to use the SupeRally format twice, after retiring from leg 1 following SS5 with transmission problems and then retiring from the third and final leg on SS14, when he again had issues with the transmission.

"On SS14 [on Sunday] we suffered from severe transmission problems. I contacted the team management but there was no point in running the remaining four stages as there was no service left," he explained.

"Subsequently I brought the car back to the Porto Cervo parc ferme in accordance with rally headquarters. My summary of Rally Sardinia is naturally very sobering. Aside from petty little matters which will always cost you time over the course of a rally I simply didn't find any decent rhythm. We also lacked the correct balance, even though the team constantly modified the set-up. What a shame, I was totally motivated for a better result. I just hope that Rally Acropolis will be better."

Rovanpera's team-mate, Andreas Aigner also had a difficult event, although given his relative lack of experience, 13th wasn't a bad effort. Indeed he made only small mistakes during the rally and as such service was mainly limited to check-ups. His biggest gaffe came on Saturday, when he was fined 5,000 Euros by the stewards for disregarding the official route on SS12. He was also handed a five minute time penalty for the offence.

"I'm glad that I didn't go down the order any further because of that mistake," he said, "and still managed to get important manufacturers' points. Apart from that I'm rather satisfied with my performance in Sardinia. My WRC gravel debut surely wasn't an easy task, but I'm already looking forward to Greece."

Red Bull Skoda team boss, Armin Schwarz had mixed feelings, when he summed up proceedings: "Andreas had two tyre failures in a single stage that diminished his otherwise good performance in his first WRC event on gravel and Harri never found a good rhythm over the course of the entire rally, even though we continually modified the car in service. The only positive aspect of Sardinia is that we once again managed to fetch some points for the manufacturers' championship. Now the entire team needs to prepare thoroughly for Greece in a fortnight."