Well it was brought up before the rally who of the 4 "top" pilots will adapt best from and in the end all 4 had bad rally:

Going by result:

Mikkelsen - "suffered" 8th place with very bad first day, most notably two passes of the long stage that was full downhill where he lost half of his 1 min at the end. Pace around the "non Italians" on day two but still says he doesn't work with the car at all on this tarmac. Getting a bit of a pattern, just like in Poland first rally on different type of surface on new tires with very limited testing and bad setup. First time ever here while everyone else in top 10 has been here 2+ times but dimvii will tell you that's just an excuse.

Breen - also "suffered" 9th which on MRF tires doesn't sound too bad, but he was 4th here last year and has done 3 Italian rounds already this year, winning one and finish 2nd on another (on Pirelli). Most interesting how he at the end of every stage says that he enjoys everything and is so happy to be here, some hard PR drill from MRF.

Gryazin - only one of these 4 to even win a single stage, yet his pace even without the two punctures (+ last stage) was somewhere around Lukyanuk, so 3-4ish. Also lost a lot of time on the "downhill" stage like Mikkelsen. Can be argued that his startingposition pick on day one contributed to the first puncture.

Lukyanuk - "saved" by new dampers from France overnight after very slow qualifying and show stage, yet even with that "save" was clearly behind those two Italians and started to loose even more before crashing. Somehow the biggest difference since he won here last year in "almost" same car by winning all stages on day 1. This year didn't win a single one.

Final point is that the competition level was much higher that last year. Last year Solberg was 3th 1min behind. This year 1 min behind was 7-ish.