Rossetti took maximum points on the opening ERC round of the year, the Rally 1000 Miglia, despite finishing second overall, as winner Paolo Andreucci was not registered for the European series. He thus went into this week’s event looking to open out his advantage over his main rivals for the prestigious title, fellow Italians Luca Betti and Corrado Fontana, both of whom are competing this year in the French Super 2000 machine. It was also Rossetti’s first time on the rally, while Fontana had won the event two years ago in the Abarth Grande Punto.

This disadvantage did not dissuade the Abarth pilot from immediately laying down his marker. Rossetti won the first four stages of the five-stage Leg 1 on Friday, to open up a 14.2 second lead over the Peugeot of Fontana. However, Rossetti was only third-fastest on the final stage of the day, 9.5 seconds slower than Fontana, who closed the gap to 4.7 seconds as the cars went into overnight parc ferme at the end of Leg 1. Betti was in a solid third, 11.6 seconds behind Rossetti.

Day 2 kicked off with more wind and rain and as Rossetti went fastest on the first stage of the day (SS6) Fontana dumped 1:29.4 to drop straight out of the battle for the lead, while Betti suffered almost as badly, dropping 59.8 seconds. In fact, Rossetti was simply in a class of his own on that stage, the Italian was full 43.7 seconds clear of the next fastest car, the Mitsubishi Evo IX of Yurii Protasov. It meant that after the first stage of the second leg Rossetti had a 1:11.4 advantage over Betti in second while Fontana slipped to third, 1:34.1 adrift of the Abarth driver. Despite this, Rossetti did not rest on his advantage, and drew a further 20 seconds clear of Fontana on the next stage (SS7), claimed a further 8.9 seconds off him on SS8, and 25.7 seconds on SS9. On the final two stages of the day, it was Betti who was Rossetti's closest challenger but the Peugeot driver lost 14.5 seconds on SS10 and was 0.4 seconds down on the last stage of the leg, SS11. It meant that with two of the three legs completed, Rossetti had opened up a massive 3:16.5 over Fontana, who was now locked in a duel with Betti, 5.5 seconds behind his fellow Peugeot driver. Rossetti also ended the day with a clean sweep of fastest times on all the stages to make it ten fastest times out of eleven tests in the rally so far, and importantly, took another maximum helping of ERC points for the leg.

With the rally in the bag barring any problems, Rossetti backed off on the opening two stages of today, but claimed fastest time on the final two tests, SS14 and SS15, to cruise in with a 3:30.6 advantage at the finish line over Betti, while Fontana, who dropped more time this morning, claimed the final podium position, 4:38.0 behind the Abarth driver. Rossetti however was quick enough over the four stage final day to take maximum ERC points on offer for the leg. The Scorpion driver simply crushed his rivals as the Abarth Grande Punto S2000 proved the car to have and Rossetti took thirteen fastest times out of the fifteen stages that made up the event on what was his Croatia Rally debut. Also of note was the performance of Simon Trobec and Simon Goja in a Fiat Punto HGT, who finished fifteenth out of the sixteen cars to survive the tough event, 43:26.0 back on Rossetti.