Rossetti, who won his ERC title two years ago at the wheel of a Peugeot 2007, is heading into his second year with the Abarth squad, and will be looking to defend the European title that his factory team mate Giandomenico Basso claimed last year. Rossetti, driving a Grande Punto Abarth S2000, will be taking part for the first time in his career in the prestigious rally in Croatia, where he will face stiff competition for the ERC points on offer: Corrado Fontana and Luca Betti, will both at the wheel of the proven Peugeot 207 S2000, Czech driver Jan Skaloud and Bulgarian Yanaky Yanakiev, are driving the Skoda Fabia S2000, while Polish rallyman Andrzei Obrebowski is in one of the new Ford Fiesta S2000 cars.

"I was born in Pordenone and Rijeka is only just over 150 km from my city, I know Croatia, a beautiful country with wonderful people, I will be at the start to honour a rally which everybody tells me is beautiful, like in all races it will not be easy to get a positive result," says Rossetti, "but I will try to defend my leadership in the European Championship."

Rossetti had very positive result on the opening round of the ERC, 34th Rally 1000 Miglia which counted for both the opening round of the 2010 Italian Rally Championship (CIR) and the ERC, and took place a fortnight ago. Victory went to the former Fiat factory driver, Paolo Andreucci, in the official Racing Lions 207 S2000, but as he isn't registered to collect ERC points, Rossetti, who finished second overall took up the lead of the European series after one round, with 37 points, ahead of Renato Travaglia (26 points) in second and Elwis Chentre (20 points) in third.

The Croatia Rally is the oldest, most difficult and most popular car racing event in the Republic of Croatia. It also has the reputation as being one of the best organised events in this part of Europe. The rally was organized for the first time in 1974 by the "INA" auto-moto club of Zagreb and was then called the "INA-Delta TLX Rally". The Rally 'struggled' to obtain European Championship status for more than 15 years. Finally in 1991 FIA granted the coefficient 2 to the Rally and in 1992 the 19th European Delta rally championship took place. The organisers of the event are proud to say that this was the first international sporting event to have been organized in the newly formed Republic of Croatia. Top level organisation with the help of numerous sports enthusiasts, along with the chief sponsor "INA oil industries" and with the support of  certain individuals in the Croatian government made it possible for the Rally to gain coefficient 5 in 1994  and coefficient 10 the following year. Thus in the short span of four years the Rally grew from an anonymous local event to one of  the most prestigious in this part of Europe. From there it has grown to become a stable fixture of the revised format ERC where the number have rallies have been reduced and all carry the same points scoring status.