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Luca Rossetti came out on top of a
titanic battle with his Italian Rally Championship (CIR)
title rival Paolo Andreucci over the final leg of 51st
Rallye Sanremo yesterday, and the Italian keep his hopes of
winning the title flickering until the final round of the
series in a month’s time. The factory Abarth driver finished
second overall but took maximum CIR points, while fifth
place for the Peugeot Italia driver was good enough for
second place in the Italian rankings. It means that Rossetti
chips the deficit down to six points with just one more
event, the 28th Rally di Como, to come on October 25.
There was some post-rally agony though
for Rossetti as right at the end of the event. A fighting
time from Renato Travaglia saw the veteran Italian squeeze
past Andreucci in his Island Motorsport-run Peugeot 207
S2000 on the final stage, and if the results had stayed that
way it would have seen the gap between Rossetti and
Andreucci reduced to four points. However, Travaglia was
then handed a 30-second penalty for checking into the final
checkpoint three minutes late, and this dropped him from
third to sixth place overall. It meant that Nicolas Vouilloz
(Peugeot) took over the last podium position and Freddie
Loix (Peugeot) moved up to fourth, with Andreucci promoted
to fifth and 8 CIR points.
Rossetti had gone into yesterday's second
and final leg trailing title rival Andreucci by 1.7 seconds,
needing nothing less than to finish ahead of the Peugeot
driver if he was to keep his championship hopes alive.
However the Abarth driver was in fighting form and over the
final five stages that comprised the second day he kept the
championship alive by overhauling and then keeping Andreucci
at bay. Rossetti wasn’t able to match the pace of
Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) title leader Kris
Meeke, who won the event with 15.7 seconds over the Abarth
driver and thus sealed the IRC title. With Abarth's own
challenge for IRC honours having finally evaporated on the
last round of the series, Giandomenico Basso is this weekend
in Greece chasing the European crown on the Rally ELPA
(which he leads going into today's final leg), so all the
Scorpion's attention in Sanremo was focused on the Italian
championship, which is still – just – within its reach.
Rossetti was less happy over the final
day though. "It’s impossible to find the right grip, the car
is not at all balanced and therefore it is difficult to stay
on the track," he said at the end of SS7, the third stage of
the final day. "We’ll try to change something at this
service park and we we’ll restart pushing." He eventually
finished second overall, but it was an amazingly tight
result and Rossetti was just 0.8 seconds ahead of
third-placed Travaglia at the end of the timed leg, 1.1
seconds in front of Vouilloz in fourth and 4.1 seconds
better than fifth-placed Loix, but most importantly 12.4
seconds better than Andreucci. It means that Rossetti's
title hopes continue to hang by a slender thread, although
he needs to place first or second in Como, with Andreucci
striking trouble, if he is to wrap up the crown. Of
Rossetti's factory Abarth team mates, Umberto Scandola
finished tenth while Belgian Francois Duval, who was drafted
in for this rally, fought his way up to eighth place before
retiring on the penultimate stage yesterday, SS8.
Rally winner Kris Meeke has thus joined
great names such as Markku Alén, Michele Mouton and his late
mentor Colin McRae on the roll of honour in taking victory
in Sanremo, as well as clinching the IRC title win one round
to spare. “We never could have expected this to happen,”
said a slightly disbelieving Meeke as he crossed the line.
“There’s so many people I have to thank for the opportunity,
I’m only one link in the chain and there’s a long chain of
people who helped make it happen and without any one of
them, the chain would have been broken.” Victory on Sanremo
was all the sweeter for overcoming brake problems that held
back the British driver's progress early in the rally.
“The opening night’s stages were
interesting to say the least, then it all just clicked and I
got a rhythm,” Meeke said. “The pace notes were inch-perfect
and I honestly couldn’t believe the times! “I had a few
troubles with the brakes on the second stage this morning,”
he explained. “I was able to drain it while driving to the
next stage, but I couldn’t put all the fluid back because of
a defective pipe so we had next to no brakes at all – but
fortunately it was short and up-hill!”
There was bitter disappointment for Fiat
in the IRC's two-wheel-drive category as Peugeot driver
Denis Millet survived a last-minute protest from title
contender Manuel Villa to claim the 2009 IRC 2WD Cup. Fiat
Punto S1600 driver Villa protested his French rival for a
road traffic infraction after he was forced to retire from
his home event when engine problems, but this was rejected
by the stewards. Maintaining his consistent podium-winning
form despite a renewed onslaught from a trio of extremely
rapid Hondas in Sanremo, Millet held out to take second
place on the rally behind the Civic of Sandro Sottile, and
put the drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles beyond reach. “It
is really special for us to win such an important title with
this car, which was brand new this season,” Millet said.
Villa, who is also contesting the Trofeo Abarth 500 series
on track this year, has been in the title race all season,
but bad luck during recent rounds has seen his title tilt
finally come to an end.
Outgoing IRC 2WD Cup champion Marco
Cavigioli was back in the Fiat Punto JTD that carried him to
last year's title for this rally and he had a solid weekend
to finish in forty-ninth place overall, Ugo Pisano was the
best placed of a trio of Fiat Pandas that survived to make
the finish line, he was classified in fifty-eighth place,
while rally enthusiasts were cheered by the two tiny Fiat
Seicento Abarth Kits of Federica Lio and Francesco Girardi
that brought up the tail end of the field, but posted
excellent times throughout the rally.
51st Rallye Sanremo,
Intercontinental Rally
Challenge Rd 10/Italian
Rally Championship, Rd 9 - final classification:
1 Kris Meeke (GB)
Peugeot 207 S2000 – 2hrs
20m 3.5s
2 Luca Rossetti (I)
Abarth Grande Punto
S2000 – +15.7s
3 Nicolas Vouilloz (F)
Peugeot 207 S2000 –
+16.9s
4 Freddy Loix (B)
Peugeot 207 S2000 –
+19.8s
5 Paolo Andreucci (I)
Peugeot 207 S2000 –
+28.1s
6 Renato Travaglia (I)
Peugeot 207 S2000 –
+46.5s
7 Luca Cantamessa (I)
Peugeot 207 S2000 – +1m
28.6s
8 Juho Hanninen (FIN)
Skoda Fabia S2000 – +1m
41.8s
IRC
2WD Cup Result, Round 10
of 11:
1 Sandro Sottile (I)
Honda Civic Type R3C –
2hrs 29m 37.6s
2 Denis Millet (F)
Peugeot 207 R3T – +7m
19.4s
3 Umberto Consigli (I)
Peugeot 207 R3T – +9m
6.8s
4 Roberto Vescovi (I)
Peugeot 207 R3T – +9m
10.5s
5 Andrea Carella (I)
Peugeot 207 R3T – +9m
10.7s
6 Laszlo Vizin (H) Honda
Civic Type R3 – +10m
50.3s
7 Mirko Strambi (I)
Peugeot 207 R3T – +11m
0.2s
8 Ugo Pisano (I) Abarth
Panda Kit – +15m 17.4s
IRC 2WD Cup Drivers’
Standings after 10 of 11
events
1 Millet 49 points*
2 Villa 36
3 Vizin 11
4 Sotille 10
*Millet is 2009 IRC 2WD
Cup Drivers’ Champion
IRC 2WD Cup
Manufacturers’ Standings
after 10 of 11 events
1 Peugeot 80 points*
2 Abarth 55
3 Honda 53
4 Volkswagen 16
*Peugeot is 2009 IRC 2WD
Cup Manufacturers’
Champion
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