Rally Bulgaria, scheduled this year from July 8th to 10th, will be the fifth round of the prestigious European series and Rossetti arrives at the event with a tally of 113 points following his battling recovery drive to second place in the ERC standings on the Ypres Rally in Belgium.

That strong drive netted him 29 points and allowed him to overhaul Luca Betti (Peugeot 207 S2000) who had edged into the points lead going into Ypres after "Rox" elected to skip the previous round in Turkey. Betti remains on 87 points, just two ahead of Pole Maciej Oleksowicz (Ford Fiesta S2000) who has scored on all four ERC rounds so far this year. The only other driver to have picked up points on every round is Czech Antonín Tlusťák, although he has totted up just 46 points so far.

Pier Liberali, from United Business, the company which manages Rossetti, said: ”It's the first time that Rossetti does this rally, I am nevertheless optimistic, because our driver has a great international experience and always knows how to interpret the events well from the very beginning. Clearly, it will not be easy for Luca, but I have great faith in both the crew and in the Abarth Grande Punto Super 2000, which on this occasion will be provided by the Turkish team Pegasus Racing, a team with which the crew won the Bosphorus Rally last year. Racing abroad is difficult, to obtain positive results even more so, but it is certainly stimulating and enhances the experience of the driver. The goal of our company is to ensure that the he is considered an international driver and not a local or national one”

Rally Bulgaria is a leading rallying event with 41 years of history. From 1970 to 2001 the Rally headquarters was located in the famous Black Sea resorts – Zlantni Piasatzi and Albena. In 2002 the competition however moved its base in the central part of South Bulgaria and the rally now takes place in the picturesque resort of Borovetz, located at Rila Mountain.

Last year Rally Bulgaria became for a first time a round of the FIA World Rally Championship. 43 crews (8 with FIA priority 1 ranking) from 14 European countries took part in the event. The winners of the rally were Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena in their factory Citroën C4. More than 250,000 spectators attended the event.

For this year's 42nd edition the competition will consist of 258.96 km of special stages with a total length of 775.27 km. Ten special stages take place on the mountain course. The ceremonial start will take place on Friday (July 8th) at 20:00 local time, in the centre of Borovetz, and on Saturday (July 9th) the rally will start at 07:30 with six special stages. On Sunday (July 10th) from 07:30 the last four special stages will be held, with a final arrival at 15.30 in the centre of Borovetz.