Rally Adriatico 2002
Rally of Adriatico 2002 edition has been simultaneously a race valid for the CIR (Italian Rally Championship) and the CRT (Challenge Rally Terra) for the Italian championships. It is another occasion to see Renato Travaglia with his 206 WRC fighting Andrea Navarra driving the Subaru Impreza WRC by Aimont Racing. Also Andrea Aghini with another 206 WRC joined the usual crew of Grossi, the Greek Vovos, and Papadimitriou with Ford Focus WRC and Luca Cantamessa with another Subaru Impreza WRC.
The race proclaimed Navarra as the gravel dominator with his third victory after the third race of the CRT. Travaglia didn't pace off the Subaru driver, but got the second standing just before his team mate Aghini, who debuted the 2002 season with the Peugeot car.
A parallel battle has been even in the Super 1600 category, where more drivers got the first standing during the race. Baldacci with Citroen Saxo dominated from first to fourth special stager, but Gianluigi Galli became first up to the end of the first leg. The real contenders has some trouble, such as Paolo Andreucci who didn't guess a good suspension setup and some bad tyres choice. Andrea Dallavilla was very near to the first standings when he lost almost eight minutes in the last stages, due to the broken acceleration wire of the Vieffecorse's Citroen Saxo, a really strange failure in the rallies. Even Longhi was not very fast with the Renault Clio debuting on the gravel. The first leg saw Galli first with Top Run's Fiat Punto, second Luca Pedersoli with the Grifone's Punto, and Andreucci with the Procar's Fiat car too. Mirko Baldacci felt back with Piero Longhi.The second leg started with the retirement of Gianluigi Galli who ended up his race and went off with a tumbling down with four or five turns in the grass and left the standing position to Luca Pedersoli. Andreucci did not hesitate to attack the Grifone drivers and demonstrated he is really the 2001 Italian Rally champion with superb times and the right tyres choice.
The final classification: 1 Navarra (Subaru Impreza WRC), 2 Travaglia (Peugeot 206 WRC), 3 Aghini (Peugeot 206 WRC), 4 Grossi (Ford Focus WRC), 5 Cantamessa (Subaru Impreza WRC), 6 Papadimitriou (Ford Focus WRC).
The Super 1600 category: 1 Andreucci (Fiat Punto), 2 Pedersoli (Fiat Punto), 3 Baldacci (Citroen Saxo), 4 Longhi (Renault Clio), 5 Perego (Opel Corsa), 6 Vagnini (Fiat Punto).
The CIR classification after the 5th race, the Rally of Adriatico: 1 Travaglia (Peugeot 206 WRC) pt.29, 2 Navarra (Subaru Impreza WRC) pt.20, 3 Andreucci (Fiat Punto) pt.16, 4 Riolo (Peugeot 306), Dallavilla (Citroen Saxo), Cantamessa (Subaru Impreza), Grossi (Ford Focus WRC) pt.10.
The CIR Super 1600 category: 1 Andreucci (Fiat Punto) pt.46, 2 Dallavilla (Citroen Saxo) pt.26, 3 Galli (Fiat Punto) pt.14, 4 Pedersoli (Fiat Punto) pt.11, 5 Baldacci (Citroen Saxo) pt.10, 6 Longhi (Renault Clio) pt.7, 7 Perego (Opel Corsa) pt.4.
Now some pictures I got on the net. I thank Photo Cris to have sent me very nice pictures of Andreucci, the winner of Super 1600 category.
Andreucci on podium |
Andreucci on stage |