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Luca
Rossetti lost more points to his Italian title
rival Paolo Andreucci on the 28th Rally Costa
Smeralda at the weekend after a puncture ended
his chances of victory and he came second; it
was a result that he simply couldn't afford and
sees the crown slipping further from his grasp.
To boost
Rossetti's flagging title hopes, Abarth drafted in gravel
specialist Anton Alén who has been dropped from the
Intercontinental Rally Challenge programme but is fresh from
a morale boosting second place on the WRC counting Neste Oil
Finland Rally for the 28th Rally Costa Smeralda, the eighth
round of the 2009 Italian Rally Championship (CIR). He
joined Rossetti and youngster Umberto Scandola in a three
car challenge that would try to close the gap to the
championship leading Peugeot 207s of former Fiat/Abarth
drivers Paolo Andreucci and the outsider for title glory
Renato Travaglia.
The 28th Rally
Costa Smeralda though lived up to its reputation for being a
tough race with its gravel roads just about impassable. With
Friday night's opening superspecial stage cancelled, the
action proper got underway on Saturday morning with the
10.39 km long SS2, the first of nine stages that would
decide the winner of this year's 28th edition. Alén, who
drove on this rally for Abarth two years ago, got off to a
great start posting the fastest time on SS2 to move into a
4.1 second lead of the rally ahead of Andreucci, while
Rossetti was a further one second back. The next stage (SS3)
saw Andreucci go fastest, 2.1 seconds ahead of title rival
Rossetti with Alén 4.6 seconds off the stage winning time.
It meant that the Peugeot Italia driver moved into the lead
of the rally with 0.5 seconds in hand over the young Finn
and it was to be a lead he wouldn't relinquish to the finish
line.
The third stage
of the day (SS4) again saw Andreucci fastest ahead of
Rossetti (+0.7 seconds and Alén (+3.1 seconds) to open his
lead out to 3.6 seconds over the latter while Rossetti was
now just 0.2 seconds off his draft-in team mate. SS5 saw the
crews kick off a second run of the morning's three stages
and Alén went fastest, his second in four stages, to take
1.6 seconds off Andreucci and close the gap to 2.0 seconds
while Rossetti was third quickest and was now 5.1 seconds
off the rally lead.
The next test
(SS6) saw the rally now past the half way point and
completing its second loop of the day's three tests, and
Rossetti really started to burnish his title pretensions: he
went fastest, slicing 3.6 seconds out of the rally leader
who was the second-quickest through the 15.68 km second
running of SS3. With Alén dropping 13.6 seconds it meant the
Italian Abarth driver moved above his Finnish team mate in
the classification to second overall and close the gap to
Andreucci to just 1.5 seconds with four stages to go.
Meanwhile Scandola in the third factory Abarth entry, after
a slow start on the first stage of the day (SS2) where he
posted only the seventeenth quickest time had reeled off
three lower top-10 times and had climbed up to eighth place
overall.
On SS7, the
second loop of Vino Siddaju-Olba saw it all go horribly
wrong for the Abarth team as Alén, who had Timo Alanne
alongside in the co-driver's seat as usual, hit an object on
the 15.44 km long stage and retired while Rossetti dropped
12.6 seconds to stage winner Andreucci although with the
blistering pace that these two were setting he was still
second fastest. However the puncture damaged the Abarth
Grande Punto's steering and repairs after the stage landed
him with a 1 minute and 20 second penalty to drop him right
out of contention. To make matters even worse for the Abarth
team technical issues had sidelined Scandola and co-driver
Guido D’Amore on the road section up to that stage.
As the rally
shook up after the disastrous SS7 for Abarth, and with four
stages to go, Andreucci had a 1 minute and 34.1 1 second
lead over Rossetti going into SS8 as the cars began the
third loop of the three stages and barring any problems for
the Peugeot driver it was all over. The two leading drivers
backed off now although they still went first and second
fastest through SS8, Andreucci 0.8 seconds ahead of
Rossetti, and it was the same story on the penultimate stage
of the rally, SS9, where the Peugeot driver was 0.6 seconds
ahead of his Abarth mounted title rival. Rossetti went
fastest on the final stage, his second top scratch time of
the rally but it was small consolation as he finished second
with a gap to his rival of 1 minute and 22.3 seconds.
Finishing behind
Andreucci wasn't what Rossetti could afford in Costa
Smeralda and it means that the gap has now extended from six
to eight points in the Peugeot Italia driver's favour with
just two rounds of the series remaining. In between them in
the points classification is Travaglia (52) but he is
already starting to have to drop scores and will have to do
so as well on both the final rallies this year meaning that
his chances of taking the crown are virtually non existent.
The next and
penultimate round of the Italian Rally Championship is the
Rally Sanremo, which is scheduled from 24-26 September. The
final round will be in Como.
Italian Rally
Championship Rd 8 - 28th Rally Costa Smeralda
classification: 1. Andreucci/Andreussi (Peugeot 207
S2000) in 1hr 27min12.8s; 2. Rossetti/Chiarcossi (Abarth
Grande Punto S2000) + 1min22.3s; 3. Travaglia/Granai
(Peugeot 207 S2000) + 2min39.9s; 4. Campedelli/Fappani
(Mitsubishi Lancer) + 2min42.3s; 5. Navarra/Cerrai (Subaru
Impreza) + 3min23.4s.
Italian Rally
Championship provisional standings (after 8 rounds): 1.
Paolo Andreucci (Peugeot) 54 points; 2. Renato Travaglia
(Abarth, Peugeot; Skoda and Mitsubishi) 52; 3. Luca Rossetti
(Abarth) 46.
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