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Fiat's official return to the rally
scene starts today at the Monte Carlo Rally, the first on
the FIA World Championship calendar, in which a
newly-liveried, 2005-specification Fiat Punto Abarth will be
crewed by rising stars Mirco Baldacci and Giovanni
Bernacchini.
Fiat is entering three championships in 2005: apart from the
Junior World Title, it will be competing for the European
Championship with Giandomenico Basso and Mitia Dotta and for
the Italian Championship with Paolo Andreucci and Anna
Andreussi, who took the title with the Fiat Punto Abarth in
2003.
The Junior World Championship, which is reserved for the
under-28s and Super 1600s, will be fought out over seven
rallies: Monte Carlo, Italy-Sardinia, Acropolis-Greece,
Finland, Germany, the Tour de Corse and Spain-Catalonia.
There are 10 rallies in the European Championship, which
starts out in April with the 1000 Miles.
The other rallies on the calendar will be in Poland,
Belgium, Bulgaria, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Turkey,
Greece and France. Finally, the Italian Championship starts
on 20 March with the Ciocco Rally and consists of 10 events,
four on unmade roads and six on asphalt.
Still on the subject of rallies, Fiat will continue to run
its promotional trophy in 2005. The novelty this year is the
entry of the Fiat Panda, which will join the tried and
tested Punto and Stilo.
The radically modified formula now means a wider range of
choice of vehicles as well as the rallies themselves. It
will be possible to take part with the Fiat Punto in the
Super 1600, 1.8 HGT Group A and Group N versions, with the
Fiat Stilo 1.8 16v in Group A and Group N versions, with
Formula Start (strictly production) cars, the Fiat Punto 1.2
16v, 1.4 16v and 1.3 Diesel Multijet, and the Fiat Panda 1.2
e 1.3 Diesel Multijet.
Competition rules also offer many possibilities considering
that each driver can add together six point scores,
multiplied by a coefficient that takes account of the
difficulty and length of the rally. |
