After contesting the diesel category last year, Fiat Auto Portuguesa will this year return to the very top-level of the Portuguese National Rally Championship with the new Grande Punto Abarth S2000; the car to be driven by star Portuguese rally driver José Pedro Fontes, with the project sponsored by Vodafone.

For its 2006 campaign in the diesel class, Fiat entered a Stilo 1.9 Multijet 16v model. Driven by Pedro Leal and João Ruivo the Fiat Auto Portuguesa and Credit Agricole-sponsored car picked up some good finishes during its inaugural season.

Wishing to build on the groundwork laid down Fiat Auto Portuguesa (the official importer) has sanctioned a two-year National Rally Championship programme (2007-08) with the Super2000 category Grande Punto Abarth S2000; a decision made as the competitive series will be opened up in 2007 to this new breed of exciting rally cars for the first time. They will be entered in the N4 class.

The official Fiat Auto Portuguesa team will face stiff competition from another new Super2000 machine, this time the Peugeot 207 S2000, which will be run by the national importer of the French cars. As the reigning Super1600 champions they will provide the Fiat team with a tough test. Just as in its first season on the rally tracks the Fiat Grande Punto S2000 imperiously swept its way to the Italian Rally Championship last year, so the new 2.0-litre normally aspirated rally cars are expected to be out at the front in Portugal this year.

The driver chosen to head up the new Fiat challenge in Portugal this year is José Pedro Fontes, who was runner-up in the national Super1600 class last year, and who returns to Fiat after a seven year break. His co-driver in 2007 will be Fernando Prata. Fontes is one of the highest profile and most successful sporting figures in Portugal, just as famous for his on-track touring cars exploits as he is for rallying. He is the son of another very well-known Portuguese driver, Rufino Fontes, who won the National Touring Car Championship title in 1983, at the wheel of a Alfa Romeo GTV6 2.5.
 

José Pedro Fontes in fact started his motorsport career on the racing circuits, where he won the Portuguese Touring Car Championship three times and the Portuguese Formula Ford Championship twice, in 1995 and 1997. During his first experience in the national touring car series in 1996, where he drove an Alfa Romeo 145 with much success. José Pedro's big dream he said was, "to win the National Touring Car Championship at the wheel of a Alfa Romeo, like my Father did, years ago in past."

In 2000, Fontes decided to make a big a career change and entered the rally environment, taking up an entry with the Portuguese official rally team Fiat Telecel Vodafone, where he drove the Punto Kit-Car and Punto Super1600. The results of this new experience were very swift and quite amazing, since he was the S1600 category runner-up in 2000 and 2001, and finished third in 2002. Despite these successes the Fiat team abandoned their official presence in Portuguese Rally Championship at the end of 2002; however José Pedro, buoyed by his results continued in the rally  environment (with some sporadic incursions onto the tracks), winning the S1600 category in 2005 and being the front-wheel drive class' runner-up last year.

With the new Fiat Grande Punto Abarth S2000 machine, Fiat Auto Portuguesa have gained a dynamic and proven winning rally car - in its first year in rallying (2006) this car won the Italian, Europe and and Intercontinental Rally Championships at its first try; and with José Pedro Fontes, they have a proven driver. Fiat Auto Portuguesa also will renew a long-standing relationship with Vodafone, the mobile phone giant who will sponsor the team this year also backed the official outfit's efforts at the beginning of this decade. Nuno Lopes will be competitions director. The package must start the 2007 season as the one to beat.

by Ricardo Lapa