Rossetti is both the defending European champion and leads the points standings after one round of this year's contest with 39 points compared to his closest title chasing rival Renato Travaglia's 28. Next up is Alessandro Perico (21) who is not in action this weekend, ahead of another Italian challenger, Luca Betti (16).

The 38th edition of the Croatia Rally runs over 750 km over three days with a third of those kilometers being timed. The Croatia Rally is the Eastern European country's oldest motor sport event, having achieved ERC co-efficient 2 ranking in 1991 before reaching full status in 2007.

After having gone fastest during the shakedown, Rossetti, with Matteo Chiarcossi, as usual in the co-driver's seat, continued to lay down his marker yesterday by posting the fastest time on SS1, 6.8 seconds clear of Piero Longhi (Skoda Fabia S2000). Rossetti was handed an extra bonus as his closest title rival, Travaglia, retired from the fray on the opening stage with engine failure. Also not in the action was Polish ERC title chasing regular Michal Solowow who was scheduled to drive a Mitsubishi Evo on the event but scratched his entry.

On SS2 "Rox" went fastest again but this time it was Peugeot 207 S2000 pilot Betti who was closest to the Scorpion driver, 6.9 seconds back, to move into second place while Rossetti opened his cushion at the front out to 17.7 seconds. The penultimate stage of the first day, SS3, saw Betti dropping 18.4 seconds to Rossetti who went fastest again, 6.7 seconds clear of Longhi, to increase his advantage to 27.6 seconds over the Skoda pilot who now moved into the first of the chasers position. The final stage of the day saw the chasing see-saw swing yet again as Betti was closest to Rossetti who made it a clean sweep of fastest times for the day. Betti was 8.8 seconds back meaning Rossetti went into overnight parc ferme with a 44.7 second advantage over the Longhi, with the evenly-matched Betti just 0.02 seconds back from him in third.

That a;; handed Rossetti the first helping of ERC points awarded after each day and also got Longhi off the points mark as the Skoda driver arrived in Croatia without any points after retiring on the opening round. Meanwhile, providing welcome support was local Abarth Grande Punto S2000 crew Niko Pulić and Bruno Šantić who ran mid-top ten all day and went on to finish the opening leg in a very respectable fifth place, 1 minute and 48.1 seconds adrift of Rossetti, and half a minute behind former Bulgarian champion Dimitar Iliev (Skoda Fabia S2000) in fourth place.

In 17th place overall at the end of the first day, second in the ERC 2WD category, as well as third in Class 5, are Giovanni Vergnano and Samuele Perino in their venerable Fiat Grande Punto JTD. The Italian rallying duo are 2 minutes and 42.2 seconds behind local crew Rok Turk and Enej Kranjc Ložnar who lead out the 2WD class in a Peugeot 207 R3T.

Rossetti and the rest of the field face seven tough stages today with a further four on Saturday before the 38th Croatia Rally finishes in Rijeka at 6pm on Sunday.