Following on from its successes in the International Rally Challenge and European Rally Championship, the Fiat Grande Punto has made its FIA World Rally Championship debut this weekend on one of the most difficult and demanding events of the series: on the rocky dirt roads of Turkey.  After their excellent performances to win the IRC and ERC this year, the honour of driving the Fiat Grande Punto on its world championship debut went to Giandomenico Basso and co-driver Mitia Dotta, with the Italian pairing backed up by a crew entered by Fiat Turkey, made up of Volkan Işık and Güray Karacar.  Işık and Karacar won the Super Production category (finishing fourth overall, in spite of a puncture) on the recent Bursa Rally, counting towards the national championship, where the Super2000 Grande Punto made its Turkish debut.

Competing at the Turkish Rally for the World Championship was regarded as a difficult, selective test for the Grande Punto, on some of the worst dirt roads on the international rally scene.  The aim was to provide Fiat technicians with precious information to enhance the Grande Punto’s already solid reliability record in preparation for its future commitments.  For the time being, this is merely the start of the career of this car which, in only a few months since its debut (the Rally del Ciocco in March, which it won), has succeeded in winning five Italian Championship rallies, five European Championship events, and three of the four rallies which made up the first International Rally Challenge.

After the starting ceremony on Thursday, the Turkish Rally was scheduled over three legs and 19 special stages, making up a total of 1,201km on very difficult gravel roads. The first leg was set to be fought out over 9 stages, making up 152 timed kilometres.  However, all did not go smoothly, as the rally started with the cancellation of SS1 (Perge 1), dreadful climatic conditions resulting in severe air turbulence, meaning that the medical helicopter was unable to land. The same fate quickly befell SS2 (Myra 1), and so the rally got finally underway with SS3, the 9.9km-long ‘Kumluca 1’, still with the presence of torrential rain.  At the front of the pack, Marcus Gronholm in the Ford Focus WRC 06 jumped into an instant lead, completing the stage in 7 minutes 42.7 seconds, more than 7 seconds faster than his closest rival Petter Solberg (Subaru Impreza WRC 2006). However, the first timed stage saw everything go disastrously wrong for the Fiat Grande Punto as the Super2000 car’s full World Rally Championship debut got underway: Giandomenico Basso hit a bridge and ripped his right front wheel off, losing 17 minutes and 59.4 seconds and finishing dead last, plunging the European Champion out of the first leg and leaving the New Business 16 team mechanics with a lot of work to do if they were to patch his car up so he could take advantage of the SupeRally regulations and restart on Saturday morning.  To make matters worse, Volkan Işık and Güray Karacar in the other Grande Punto hit the same bridge as Basso, likewise breaking a wheel.  After limping to the finish of the stage in fourth-last position and dropping 6 minutes and 48 seconds, the pair were also forced to retire from the leg with broken suspension.
 

With the cars patched up overnight, Basso and Işık took to the stage ramp on Saturday morning for the second leg, scheduled to be run over 7 stages which made up 147 competitive kilometres.  Basso was determined to finally show the potential of the Super2000 car, but also to survive the treacherous wet, muddy and rough surfaces which had tested the field on the opening day.  The first stage of the day (SS11, Kemer 1) immediately gave the Fiat drivers the chance to shine. 

While Petter Solberg won the 20.90km special stage in 14 minutes and 54.9 seconds, Basso was 17th overall (16:36.4) and Işık 19th (17:03.7). Basso was less than a minute behind the privately-entered WRC machines, and the comfortable winner of the N4 class, seeing off the challenge of the turbocharged Group N Subaru and Mitsubishi machines as well as the threat from the horde of JWRC cars.  The result provided an excellent tonic to the previous day’s travails.

The second of the morning’s tests, the 27.36km ‘Silyon 1’ stage, again saw Basso snapping at the heels of the WRC tail enders, his time of 22 minutes and 53.7 seconds putting him 17th quickest, fastest in N4 and the quickest non-WRC car, well ahead of the JWRC runners, although the Fiat Super2000 challenge was reduced to just one car as Işık was forced into retirement.  Basso’s time was less than a minute slower than the capable WRC machines of Jan Kopecky (Skoda Fabia), Matthew Wilson (Ford Focus) and experienced local star Ercan Kazaz (Subaru Impreza), all well-sorted cars comfortably at home in these very unfavourable conditions. 

However on general classification, with his time losses yesterday and the obligatory SupeRally time penalty, Basso was right down in 46th place, 54 minutes and 21.4 seconds behind rally leader Gronholm.  The next three stages, though, once more saw the Italian driver coming out on top as the quickest non-WRC entry: on SS12, the second running of Kemer, he was 18th overall and again first in N4; on SS13, the second time round on the slippy Silyon stage, he managed an excellent 17th overall; while on SS14 (Chimera 1) he was again the fastest non-WRC runner, in 17th place.  The second day’s final two stages allowed Basso to ease back so as to reach overnight parc fermé with the car intact, placing 18th on SS15 (Phaselis 2, 29.28km) and 20th on the final, short stage of the day, the 5.20km SS16 (Akeniz University). 

The final leg of the 2006 Rally of Turkey will start this morning at 9.15am and run until 1.06pm, with the remaining three special stages scheduled to comprise just on 50 timed kilometres.