Ever since the summer of 2004, Italian rally fans have been eager to see the return of the leading Italian automotive names to top-line rally competition. A long tradition of Fiat brands fighting for glory in world rallying reached a height of success with Fiat 124/125 in 1970’s, rapidly followed by legendary Lancia Fulvia Coupè and Lancia Stratos in latter part of that decade. The 1980’s was a time that no rally fan in Italy will ever forget, where the Fiat 131 Abarth opened the door to many titles and victories which were claimed by Lancia with Lancia Rally 037 and Delta S4, and then the six constructors’ championship titles in-a-row that were imperiously swept up by that mythical beast of world rallying: the Lancia Delta Integrale, which appeared in various flavours, from the first HF to very last awesome 'Evoluzione' specification.
 

In fact during 2004, Fiat didn’t hide its desire to return to the top level of the world's foremost rally championships, after prominent rallying activities were undertaken with the nimble, quick little Fiat Punto Super1600. Fiat's top executives wanted to return to the World Rally Championship, but only if the FIA would downgrade the hi-tech packaged World Rally Cars, to something which would be simpler and cheaper to develop. Then the FIA launched the Super2000 initiative and Fiat immediately embraced the basic idea: building an all-wheel-drive car, that would cost less than 150,000 euros to develop, be targeted at private customer teams, would come with simple engine technology, a 2,000cc atmospheric engine, and with a common transmission system provided by a mandatory supplier imposed by FIA, which was chosen in late 2004, as the French firm SADEV.

Now the hype, development and planning is over, this weekend Fiat will line up two brand new Fiat Punto Super2000 rally cars on the first round of the 2006 Italian Rally Championship. This though will be not the worldwide competitive debut for the new breed of Super2000 cars, because a private entered Volkswagen Polo S2000 and Toyota Corolla S2000 have been already seen in action in the South-African national series back in May last year. However, the Fiat Punto Super2000's debut outing will be the first appearance by a full works car, which is a whole different ball game to the very mild South-African 'experiments'.

Meanwhile Renault has been working ever since last summer on the Dacia Logan Super2000 project, and Peugeot is speculating on an upcoming Super2000 car, based on the new Peugeot 207 model. Both the French constructors though are worried by the inspection carried out at Fiat by the FIA's Super2000 technical inspector Jacques Berger during the last week of February. The FIA inspector visited Fiat's Chivasso facility to check up on the status of the Italian carmaker's Super2000 programme, and to examine the most problematic issue surrounding the new Super2000 cars: the development costs, which have to be be kept under tight control in order to fulfil the 150,000 euro spending limit. It seems that during the inspection he came to the conclusion that the Fiat Punto Super2000's cost for the private customers will be 20 percent higher than the regulations require and this issue could now undermine the development programme of the French challengers, and cast doubt over the whole Super2000 project.
 

However Fiat didn’t halt the momentum programme and kept on with last minute preparations for the Grande Punto S2000's the national series debut this weekend, which is aided by the fact that the Italian Rally Championship has been modified for this year's edition in order to accept the subscription of teams with Super2000 specification cars into in the N/4 class, the same one as which houses the 'Production' cars.
 

Fiat has enrolled two top Italian crews for the first Italian challenge: the 2002, 2004, and 2005 Super1600 Italian Rally Championship winner, and Italian 2003 overall rally champion Paolo Andreucci, who will be co-driven as usual by Anna Andreussi. Joining the experienced Fiat crew will be 2004 Italian Rally Champion Andrea Navarra, co-driven by Guido D’Amore.

Last Friday, the factory N.Technology team switched its focus to Orzaglia, in province of Lucca, Tuscany, to carry out an intensive four day test session before the car's anticipated debut on the Rally del Ciocco e Valle del Serchio, scheduled for March 18th-19th. During the first two days of the programme Andrea Navarra drove the new car, but he encountered several issues that forced him to stop often during the sessions. A problem at the power steering system halted testing several times, and an engine failure also occurred on Saturday. On Sunday (12th), Paolo Andreucci took over driving duties and he wrapped up the intensive testing programme. The Tuscan driver, who intimately knows the Rally del Ciocco’s special stages – he in fact lives within the event's geographical area – encountered almost the same problems that had hit Navarra during the previous two days, although the engine ran flawlessly, and on Monday (13th), the final day of the test, everything went perfectly, allowing Andreucci to gets some serious kilometres on several new sets of Michelin tyre compounds.
 

The brand-new Fiat Grande Punto Super2000 is based around the production Grande Punto model, but it is however equipped with larger rims than were fitted to the previous Fiat Punto Super1600 which boasted 17-inch wheels and this lets the N.Technology team mount the same 18-inch sized tyres on the new car which are used by the more powerful WRC machines, and this could turn out to be a great card to have in hand for the new car in the Italian Rally Championship when it will be battling the rapid 'Production' category cars for honours.
 

The level of competition in the upcoming 2006 Italian Rally Championship is expected to be at its very highest in recent memory, because Fiat's rival constructors have over the winter sought to raise the bar once again with the latest Japanese specification machines, which dominate the GpN series' in national, international, and worldwide series': the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX, and the Subaru Impreza Sti spec.D., set to be at the forefront of the fight for victories and points. Both these turbocharged cars are estimated to now be powered by engines with more than 300 bhp available, and have torque levels in the 500-560 Nm range, which means these cars aren’t quite so far from the full WRC machines anymore.

However, the Fiat Grande Punto Super2000 doesn’t benefit any turbocharging or supercharging addition, and it must count on its own 270 bhp and “only” 240-250Nm of torque as the new rally car is fitted with an almost the identical engine to that which is installed in the Alfa 156 used the FIA World Touring Car Championship, although it has been revised by N.Technology for its new rallying purpose where the torque at lower rpms is more important that maximum power at higher revs.
 

Several Fiat fans, who were in the Tuscan valleys to watch the four-day test programme last weekend, described their own first impressions of the new rally car. “The Fiat Punto Super2000 is amazing on the fast lines and it’s also very surprisingly agile during the direction changes: in my humble opinion I can claim that the new Punto has its basic strength in its setup package and it is almost a kind of world rally car” stated one impressed fan.
 

Paolo Andreucci, has to be regarded as the “father” of Grande Punto Super2000, because he was the factory test driver who has carried out all development of the car ever since its very first test back in early 2005. He will be out to exploit all his own obvious capability to drive a rally car powered by an atmospheric engine right from the first stage of the programme this Saturday. Andrea Navarra however, is expected to be slightly further back during the series' early rounds because he left atmospheric engines behind as far back as 2001, when he drove the Fiat Punto Kit in the Italian Rally Trophy, before switching to a more powerful Subaru Impreza WRC in 2002 and 2003, then to to the Subaru Impreza Gr.N in 2004, and finally in 2005 he piloted the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII and IX.

by Marco Tenuti