18.06.2004 The Italian Rally Championship heads for the tarmac Rally del Salento giving the Fiat Punto crews a chance bid for victory, as meanwhile, Fiat claim victory on the Brazilian Santa Catarina Rally

Italian Rally Championship will be back to the tarmac this weekend for the 38^th edition of the Rally del Salento. It is the sixth round of this year's Italian Rally Championship, and kicks off the second half of the season, which comprises mostly tarmac events, a fact that will play straight into the hands of the Fiat runners.

There are in fact, five rallies to come on tarmac, this weekend's Salento Rally, followed by the San Martino di Castrozza, Alpi Orientali, Sanremo and Targa Florio, with just one more remaining on gravel, the Adriatico Rally.

Five of the Super 1600 Fiat Punto Abarth Rally machines, built and developed by N-Technology, will line up at the start of the Rally del Salento. The pilots are Paolo Andreucci, the reigning Italian Rally Champion, his close rival Giandomenico Basso, Stefano Bizzarri, the leader of Trofeo Fiat Abarth, Matteo Gamba, who heads the Trofeo's Under 27 classification, and newcomer Nicola Caldani.

The all tarmac rally, which is also an FIA European Rally Championship scoring round, will comprise of 25 special stages split into 2 legs giving a total of 940.53 km, with 263.31 km of these on the special stages. The start and finish taking place in Lecce.

The rally is also the fourth event of the season for the Trofeo Fiat Stilo Abarth Rally, and eleven Fiat Stilo Abarth Rally cars will be at the start for a round that takes in thirteen special stages.

The first three rounds of the series, for similar specification Stilos, saw the under 25 category drivers dominate proceedings, Chemin winning the Tutta Terra Toscana, Perego the 1000 Miglia, and Medici victorious in San Marino.

Meanwhile, across the world in South America, a Fiat Palio from the Fiat Rally Team has just won the Santa Catarina Rally, the third round of Campeonato Brasileiro de Rali de Velocidade 2004.

At the wheel were regular Palio pilots, Luís Tedesco and Sidinei Broering, the double winners, in 2002 and 2003, of the Brazilian Rally Championship. Thanks to this excellent result they are now lying second in the championship classification.