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Giandomenico
Basso and Mitia Dotta raced to second place in the Grande
Punto Abarth S2000 on the Rally Targa Florio at the weekend,
the event dominated by tyre choice. The result sees Basso
retain the lead of the Italian Rally Championship (CIR), now
on equal points to Paolo Andreucci (Mitsubishi Evo IX) who
won the Targa Florio.
All the usual
contenders lined up for the start of the 91st edition of the
Rally Targa Florio, Basso facing stiff opposition from the
GpN Mitsubishi and Subaru runners led out by Andreucci,
Piero Longhi, Matteo Gamba and Andrea Aghini, as well as the
two new Super2000 Peugeot 207s, which have already proved
during the opening rounds of the CIR this year to be fast.
The first stage on Saturday morning (SS1 Montemaggiore
17.2km) set the tone for the first leg with Andreucci going fastest,
5.1 seconds ahead of Basso, with the rapid Super2000 Peugeot
207 of Rossetti third, just 0.7 seconds behind the Fiat
pilot. Longhi (Subaru Impreza) led out the rest of the GpN
brigade, 10.4 seconds off Andreucci. Light rain made tyre
choice critical as the track was 'rubberised' and the
Pirellis on Andreucci's Evo IX seemed to be the most
suitable compound. Making the correct tyre
choice was a difficultly shared by all the teams, and it
would be a problem that would last all day.
The second stage (SS2 Targa 1 16.24km) saw Andreucci again
going fastest, 4.7 ahead of Rossetti and 4.8 ahead of Basso - the
French and Italian Super2000 machines proving very evenly
matched. This increased his lead to 9.9 seconds, which was
soon extended to a comfortable 23.3 after three stages as on
the third test (SS3 Polizzi 1 11.74km) he took a further 13.4 seconds off Basso, while
Rossetti hit problems and lost almost a minute. On SS4, the
second loop of Montemaggiore Andreucci took another 8.4
seconds out of Basso, while on the next stage, the re-run of
Targa, Rossetti became the first driver to break Andreucci's
hold on the top of the scratch times, although the rally
leader took another 1.4 seconds out of Basso, increasing his
lead to 32.8 seconds.
With the early rain having given way to humid conditions, Basso
was still struggling with his tyre choices and he lost another
1.4 seconds to Andreucci on the sixth stage as the
Mitsubishi driver continued to press hard as he looked to
take maximum advantage while the surface conditions were
tipped in
his favour, the second running of Polizzi, while on the next
test, the third time round Montemaggiore, Rossetti grabbed
his second fastest time of the day as he continued his
fightback, although Basso lost just 0.3 seconds to the
rally leader. The Final stage of the first leg, SS8, the
third pass over 'Targa', saw Basso grab his first fastest
time of the rally, winning the stage ahead of Rossetti (+2.1
seconds) and Andreucci (+3.7 seconds).
With just four stages
remaining to run on Sunday's Leg 2, Andreucci
went into the overnight parc ferme with a very strong 30.8
second advantage over Basso, while Rossetti, who had lost
almost a minute on the third test, had fought back to third,
and was now 1:10.8 off the rally lead. The other Super2000 Peugeot 207
in the rally, the machine of Alessandro Perico was next up
in fourth
(+1:18.2) while the rest of the GpN runners were led out by
Matteo Gamba's Mitsubishi Evo IX (+1:36.3) with Piero
Longhi's Subaru Impreza STi (+1:40.1) snapping at his heels.
Further down the classification the turbodiesel-powered
factory Grande Punto Abarth R3D of Davide Gatti again
struggled to survive a full CIR event, dropping out of the
running on the last stage of the day having run as high as
23rd overall and having led his category.
The final quartet of stages that comprised leg 2 (Sunday)
opened with the 13.09km long SS9 Collesano 1. Rossetti went
fastest, 6.3 seconds ahead of Basso while Andreucci lost
time as the conditions now favoured the Super2000 runners
and he the test finished third, 12 seconds adrift. |
