The second round of the 2005 Italian Championship took place earlier this month on the stages of Rally 1000 Miglia, held in the North-Eastern area of the Province of Brescia in Northern Italy.

The twisty roads of Valsabbia also played hosted to the stars of the European Rally Championship who arrived for the first round of the series, with the Renault Clio Super1600 of Team Europe's Simon Jean Joseph, and the Procar Fiat Punto Super1600 of Giandomenico Basso, lining up against each other to do battle.

After an wholly unexpected result in the first Italian Championship 2005 round, the Rally of Ciocco and Valle del Serchio, where Piero Longhi achieved his first rally success with a Group N specification Subaru Impreza Type-C, outperforming the lighter Super1600 cars due to harsh and tricky weather conditions and with almost all the tarmac very dirty, wet and covered by ice and snow patches, everybody assumed the agile Super1600 cars would have much better luck on 1000 Miglia's ideally suited stages.

In fact the event was to be won by Renato Travaglia, with his new Renault Clio Super1600, although Piero Longhi and the other members of the four wheel drive brigade, like Mitsubishi Ralliart Italia's Andrea Navarra, and Rally Project's Mitusbishi-mounted Gianfranco Cunico, tried their utmost to claim the victory.

Fiat's two factory-supported drivers were out in the 2005-specifiation Punto Abarth, and looking to challenge for honours. Paolo Andreucci, was competing in the Italian Championship, while Giandomenico Basso, was out in the European series. In the end both had a steady event, Andreucci making it onto the last step of the podium, while Basso finished in a sold sixth place.
 

Basso suffered with the setup of his Fiat Punto Abarth Super1600, and was only able to set one fastest stage time, on the second leg, the Colle San Zeno stage, which was run twice on Sunday 10th April.

On the second running of the stage however Basso was maintaining the same fast pace until an unidentified noise from the engine prevented him from pushing as hard as the previous run, in order to keep the car to the finish line and get the first points of the European series.

Former Italian Rally Champion Paolo Andreucci has no more luck than his Procar team mate, and a puncture was to compromise his final result.

by Marco Tenuti