The Rally del Ciocco sees the start of the Italian Championships. Two Grande Punto Abarth S2000s are competing

Two Grande Punto Abarth S2000s, in the hands of the official team that includes Renato Travaglia partnered with Lorenzo Granai and Andrea Navarra partnered with Guido D’Amore; it is sponsored for the third year running by Metis and together with the technical sponsor Api-IP, will head onto the course tomorrow evening (Friday 7 March) at 6.30pm with the starting line in Castelnuovo Garfagnana (Lucca) to take part in the 31st Rally del Ciocco and the Valle del Serchio, opening race of the Italian Championship.

Renato Travaglia will have number 1 on the doors of his Grande Punto Abarth and will open his first season as official Abarth racing driver. During the last season, the driver from Trentino took the Grande Punto Abarth S2000 to victory by imposing himself with authority at the Antibes Rally after competing in some of the European Championship races with a private team.

For Andrea Navarra this race marks his return to a championship where he was always at centre stage. Last year Navarra, again with the official Abarth team competed in the IRC winning the prestigious Safari race and obtaining excellent ranking in Turkey and at Ypres.

The Abarth Team that won the last two Italian Racing Driver Championships with the Grande Punto S2000 (in 2006 with Paolo Andreucci and 2007 with Giandomenico Basso), and also won the Constructors Title thanks to the triumphs of its teams, will find themselves up against their main rivals, the official teams of Peugeot (in competition with Luca Rossetti), Subaru, (with Piero Longgi) and Mitsubishi (with Paolo Andreucci).

Tomorrow’s programme (Friday 7 March) for the Rally del Ciocco and Valle del Serchio includes the departure ceremony and special trial show inside the Ciocco tourist centre. Saturday 8 March the first round leaves at 8am and ends at 7pm with 9 special track trials; Sunday sees the second and last part of the competition starting at 8am and ending at 2.30pm with another 4 special trials. Overall, the route covers 563km, 158km of them at timed speed.

The greatest uncertainty is the weather. In fact, during the special trials it snowed and so the role played by the tyres becomes very important; the Abarth Grande Punto S2000 is fitted with BF Goodrich.

The national series includes 10 competitions. After the Ciocco Rally comes San Marino (from 28 to 30 March), the 1000 Miglia (from 17 to 19 April), the Targa Florio (from 23 to 35 May), the Salento Rally (from 13 to 15 June), the San Crispino Rally (from 18 to 20 July), the Alpi Orientali Rally (from 29 to 31 August), the Costa Smeralda Rally (from 12 to 14 September), the Sanremo Rally (from 25 to 27 September) and the Como Rally (from 24 to 26 October).


Turin 6 March 2008