Portuguese Rally: fantastic comeback by Basso

The second and final round of the Portuguese Rally, second leg of the International Rally Challenge, saw Giandomenico Basso and Mitia Dotta’s Grande Punto Abarth S2000 as absolute leader, as they made a fabulous comeback that took them from 9th to 4th place at the end of the race. After the reported flat tyre yesterday – that led to a delay of around 3 mins. – the official Abarth Team did not lose hope and today’s round saw them fight back to gain points in the championship. Basso won 2 special trials and closed the gap on the race leader by more than a minute.
On the fast unsurfaced routes in the second round, the Grande Punto Abarth S2000s won 3 special trials overall out of 6, with the Belgian Duval in a private team vehicle, being forced to withdraw while he tried to take the record off the winner.
Thanks to the success of the 2 diesel powered Fiat Grande Punto Multijet rear wheel drives driven by Marco Cavigioli and Enrico Cantoni, Fiat consolidated its record in this championship ranking after the great double obtained in Turkey with the Punto Super 1600.
The next meeting of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge is the Ypres Rally from the 26 to 28 June in Belgium.

Portuguese Rally Ranking:
1. Rossetti-Chiarcossi (Peugeot 207) in 2 hours 57’50”1; 2. Kopecky-Stary (Peugeot 207) at 45”8; 3. Vouilloz- Klinger (Peugeot 207) at 1’37”8; 4. Basso-Dotta (Grande Punto Abarth S2000) at 2’18”7; 4.; 5. Hanninen-Markkula (Mitsubishi Lancer) at 2’21”2”.

IRC Racing Drivers’ Ranking:
1. Luca Rossetti ITA (Peugeot) 20 points; 2. Nicolas Vouilloz FRA (Peugeot) 14; 3. Jan Kopecky CZ (Peugeot) 12; 4. Anton Alen FIN (Abarth) 6; 5. Giandomenico Basso (Abarth) e Renato Travaglia ITA (Abarth) 5; 7. Juho Hanninen FIN (Mitsubishi) 4; 8. Dani Solà SPA (Abarth) and Bruno Magalhaes POR (Peugeot) 3; 10. Volcan Isik TR (Abarth) and Manfred Stohl AUT(Peugeot) 2.


Turin, 10 May 2008