Luca Rossetti has made
the best possible start to his FIA European Rally
Championship title defence after the Italian swept to
victory on the 38th Croatia Rally yesterday to make it
two wins from two this year and take home another
maximum points haul after being fastest on all three
days. It was Rossetti's second consecutive win on the
Croatia Rally, both have come at the wheel of the rapid
Super 2000 category Abarth Grande Punto, and the third
win for this machine in four years as Corrado Fontana
was also victorious on this rally in 2008.
The Scorpion star factory was untroubled by the
opposition he faced in Croatia and he ran out the clear
winner last night after fifteen special stages spread
over three days with a 1 minute and 42.1 second
advantage over his fellow countryman Luca Betti (Peugeot
207 S2000). Maciej Oleksowicz (Ford fiesta S2000)
finished third but the Polish driver was almost three
minutes adrift at the end. Rossetti's title hopes were
handed a further boost as two of his key rivals retired:
former double (2002 and 2005) FIA ERC champion Renato
Travaglia (Skoda Fabia S2000) suffered engine failure on
the first stage in Croatia while Piero Longhi crashed
out on the penultimate stage when fighting for third
place.
"Rox" had started the event in blistering form, and,
having been quickest on shakedown, he won two of the
opening day's four stages to take a more than forty
second advantage into Friday's long second leg. Betti
won the first test yesterday, SS5, just ahead of
Rossetti but the Abarth driver went into SS6 with a
comfortable 42.7 second lead at the front. That stage
however provided Rossetti with his only real drama of
the event, a spin cost him 22.1 seconds to Betti who
went fastest and the Abarth driver's lead was down to
just 19.8 seconds.
Rossetti however
responded immediately and posted the fastest times
through the next two stages, SS8 and SS9, to take his
lead back up to 42.5 seconds. Betti won the day's
penultimate test, SS10 while Rossetti took the last
stage, to make it an even split of fastest scratch times
over the leg's seven stages between Rossetti and Betti.
Szymon Ruta
(Peugeot 207 S2000) won the other test, SS7.
That added up to give
the Abarth driver the day's maximum ERC points haul and
a commanding one minute dead advantage over Betti going
into yesterday's final four stages, with Longhi almost
two minutes off in third.
Yesterday's final leg kicked off with SS11 and the
fastest time went to Oleksowicz; however with Rossetti
was second quickest and the Abarth pilot extended his
advantage over Betti. Rossetti then went on to win the
final three stages to make it ten fastest times out of
the rally's fourteen stages (3 out of 4 on leg 1, 4 out
of 7 on leg 2, and 3 out of 4 on leg 3), the Italian
safely steering clear of the rain that moved in to hit
the final two tests. The penultimate stage saw Longhi,
who was at this point battling with Oleksowicz for third
place overall, crash out, meaning the Skoda driver
failed to collect any points for the final day as well
as on the overall classification.
Meanwhile quick
Croatians Niko Pulić and Bruno Šantić in a privately
entered Abarth Grande Punto S2000 finished in a very
respectable seventh place overall, the first 'home' crew
to pass the chequered flag after they ran mid top ten
all event. This was also Pulić's first rally of the
year; he eventually finished 7 minutes and 5.9 seconds
adrift off Rossetti after the 14 stages. Finally,
Giovanni Vergnano and Samuele Perino in a Fiat Punto JTD,
finished second in the rally's ERC 2WD category. They
were also 14th overall and the last crew home, 26
minutes and 19.1 seconds off Rossetti. The 2WD category
was in fact won by Rok Turk Rok/Kranjc Enej Ložnar
(Peugeot 207 R3T) who were also ninth overall.
This means that
Rossetti has 85 points after two ERC events this year
while Betti moves up from fourth to second with 47
points. A podium finish for Oleksowicz yesterday moves
him up from seventh to third in the standings while
Renato Travaglia, who was second after the first round,
drops down to fourth place as an engine failure on the
first stage in Croatia means he doesn't add to his 28
points. Bulgarian Skoda driver Dimitar Iliev picked up
16 points for his fourth place yesterday and remains in
fifth place, but is now on 26 points.
