Volkan Işık and Güray Karacar will race the Grande Punto Abarth S2000 in an ambitious FIA European Rally Championship (ERC) programme this year as the Fiat Motorsporlari team aim to emulate the achievement of Giandomenico Basso who won the series in 2006 at the wheel of a similar-specification machine. Işık doesn't have much experience on the smooth, fast roads that make up the ERC programme, his international experience coming on the tougher, rougher surfaces to be fund in Turkey, across Eastern Europe and on selected WRC events, so this year will be a steep learning curve.

His 2007 programme is being run by Fiat Motorsporlari, the rallying division of Fiat Turkey, which has accumulated vast experience running Fiats this decade, including developing the successful Palio Kit Car. Last year Fiat Motorspolari supported the factory Abarth team when the Grande Punto Abarth S2000 made its WRC debut outing on the Turkey Rally driven by Basso and Işık, while the Turkish team became the first outfit outside of the factory to receive and run the new S2000 car, Isik pedalling the 2.0-litre four-wheel-drive machine on several national events.

This weekend Işık is kicking off his ERC challenge on the Rally 1000 Miglia, an all-asphalt event which will see the hordes of Italian sealed-surface specialists in action, led out by Basso in the factory-run Abarth machine, as well as highly experienced drivers such as Paolo Andreucci, Piero Longhi, Andrea Aghini and Andrea Dallavilla in the powerful turbocharged GpN Subaru and Mitsubishi machines.

However with these Italian stars not registered for ERC points, Işık will need to keep a very close eye on other ERC-targeting drivers including Pole Michael Solowow (also out in a Grande Punto Abarth S2000), Bulgarians Krum Donchev (GpN Impreza STi) and Dimitar Iliev (GpN Evo IX), as well Hungarian Juraj Sebalj (GpN Evo IX). The next round of the ERC, the Fiat Rally in Turkey, though will provide a home boost which he will be able to take full advantage of: last year he finished an excellent second overall on this event, and first in Super1600, driving the Punto S1600, the event being won outright by Basso in the factory Grande Punto Abarth S2000.

Volkan Işık, a multiple national champion, is one of Turkey's leading rally stars and its most famous name in this discipline. He came to prominence internationally when he signed for Toyota Mobil Team Turkey in 1998. Over the next two years he ran a diverse international rally programme, initially with the Celica GT-Four and then with the Corolla WRC, taking in world championship events including Portugal, Acropolis, Rally GB, Finland, Australia, China, San Remo and Argentina. In 2002 he joined the then Fiat Abarth Motorsports, as the Fiat Turkey backed team was known. Aside from his national titles he has contested a number of international-status events in recent years for Fiat team.
 

Driving the Palio Kit Car to class victory on the ERC-counting Turkey Rally in 2002, with another class victory coming on the Anatolian Rally that year. For 2003 he took to the new Super1600 Punto, which was run by Fiat Abarth Motorsports alongside the existing Palio Kit Car programe, and turned in some excellent international-status results, winning his class on the Bulgaria Rally (ERC20), the Hebros Rally (ERC5) and then overall victory on the Georgia Rally (ERC2). He continued to race the nimble Super1600 Punto through 2004 and into 2005 (when the team was renamed Fiat Motorsporlari), winning his class on two more ERC counting events, the Rally Sliven (ERC10) in 2005 and the Fiat Rally (ERC20) last year. Isik has also turned out on the WRC-counting Turkey Rally for the past four years, in 2003 in the Palio S1600, during 2004-05 with the Punto S1600, while last year he joined Giandomenico Basso in a two-entry challenge as the Grande Punto Abarth S2000 made its full WRC debut on the Turkey Rally.

The 2007 FIA European Rally Championship got underway with the Rally 1000 Miglia (19-21 April) which swung into serious action this morning after the superspecial yesterday, with the next scheduled round being the Fiat Rally in Turkey (11-13 May). This is followed by the INA Croatia Delta Rally (24-26 May), the Rajd Polski in Poland (8-10 June), with Belgium's prestigious Ypres-Westhoek Rally coming up just a fortnight later (22-24 June). A fortnight after that event will be the Bulgaria Rally (6-8 July) before almost a month's break in the series is ended with the Rallye Vihno Da Madeira (2-4 Aug). The series wraps up with a visit to the Czech Republic for the Barum Rally (24-26 Aug), the ELPA Rally (5-7 Oct) in Greece, and finally the Rallye d'Antibes (19-21 Oct) in France.

After four stages of the Rally 1000 Miglia (yesterday evening's superspecial plus three stages this morning) Işık and Karacar are in 17th place overall, but more importantly holding strong position amongst their ERC rivals, the Turkish pair 1:47.4 behind Basso (Grande Punto Abarth S2000) who leads the event. Corrado Fontana in a similar machine, being run by Bluthunder Racing, is just 2.5 seconds behind Işık, while Solowow in the other Abarth S2000 car in the entry is 28th overall (+2:52.0 behind the rally leader). Other ERC rivals include 15th placed Dimitar Iliev (+1:31.4) while another challenger, Donchev Krum, has already hit problems and is more than six minutes behind the rally leader. At the front of the rally Basso has been in imperious form, winning all four stages to build up a 17.4 second lead over Luca Rossetti (Peugeot 207 S2000) with 11 more tests remaining.