On just the second stage of the rally, three of its four entries crashed.

Ireland’s Josh McErlean tore the left rear wheel from his Ford Puma after he ran wide and into a tree just shy of the 10km mark.

Shortly thereafter, Frenchman Gregoire Munster suffered a similar fate, tearing the right rear suspension from his car.

Worst of all was Martins Sesks of Latvia, who rolled his car at high speed just four kilometres into the stage. The damage was too great to Sesks’ car, and he was scratched from the rally.

“It’s a really hard one to take, it makes you a bit emotional about everything because everybody’s put so much effort into this,” M-Sport Ford team principal Richard Millener told DirtFish.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll get over it. We’ve had tough days before, we’ll have tough days again. But I do really feel for everybody.

“There’s so much effort into it that is not seen behind the scenes and how much people devote to this. We’re all doing the best we possibly can. But like I said, sadly, some days it’s just against you.”

The seconds run through the morning’s Telti Calangianus Berchidda stage was just as chaotic as the first.

Thierry Neuville took the lead of the rally for Hyundai on SS4 but on SS5 damaged the left rear of his car and plummeted out of contention when he was forced to retire.

“It’s disappointing to end our day in retirement – our first since Sardinia last year, so a shame to end our positive run of results,” said the Belgian.

“I lost the front of the car on the entry to a corner at high speed, and we went maybe 15cm wide and hit something with the rear, ripping our tyre off too.

“Unfortunately that was the end of our running. It was a bit of a surprise as I was close to flat out this morning and similar this afternoon, but unfortunately it didn’t end well for us today.”

Toyota wasn’t immune from the carnage either. Takamoto Katsuta rolled his car on SS5 but was helped by fans to get his car back on all four wheels.

“Unfortunately in the second stage this afternoon, in a very tight corner, we turned in quicker than I had expected and hit the rock on the inside and rolled,” said the Japanese driver.

“I’m very disappointed but at least we could reach service. We will try to reset tomorrow; it won’t be an easy day but I will just keep focused and do my best.

“We have seen how a small mistake can catch people out on this rally, so let’s see what happens.”

The only other Puma unscathed to that point, driven by Jourdan Serderidis of Greece, made it four Fords to have crashed on day one. Like Katsuta, he suffered a slow rollover at the tight hairpin.

All told, it was Sebastien Ogeir who ended the first day on top. The Toyota driver led Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux by a meagre 2.1s while the Korean manufacturer’s only other remaining contender Ott Tanak sat third and 7.3s in arrears.

“To be in the lead after Friday was not what we were expecting, so we must be very pleased with our day,” said Ogier.

“We made some changes to the setup based on our experience in Portugal and I’m feeling happier with the balance of the car here so far.

“We had a strong, consistent day and I believe it was our good tyre management that allowed us to take the lead in the last stage of the day.

“Still, the gaps are very close to Adrien and Ott, so we will need to keep pushing just as hard tomorrow as we did today.”

After event leader Ogier, the Toyotas occupied fourth through seventh. FIA World Rally Championship points leader Elfyn Evans was sixth in the queue, more than a minute of the pace.

“As we expected it was a challenge to open the road today with quite a big cleaning effect,” said the Welshman.

“The feeling in the car this morning was actually not too bad with some improvement from Portugal, but the road was evolving a lot behind us and other drivers could take big chunks of time, especially in the last stage of the loop.

“In the afternoon there was still some cleaning effect for us, but when the road was hard and rocky I was also struggling more with the feeling, so that’s still something to work on overnight. A better road position will definitely help and we’ll go again tomorrow.”

Rally Italia Sardegna continues on Saturday with six stages, the first of which gets underway at 5pm AEST.