San Marino Rally 2003
I'm following the event with some reports during these days and I will add also a bunch of exclusive photos from Videorace and Photocris.
Event summary: leg 1
The fifth round of the Italian rally championship returns to the gravel ground: it's time of Rally of San Marino, valid also for the Challenge Rally Terra, the Italian gravel rally series. This is why we will have a great mixtures of cars and engines in the event, as in some previous events of the strange current season: few WRC cars are contesting for such challenge and for the rally victory, while rough fight is expected for the points valid for the real Italian rally championship, points which are given to drivers at the wheel of Super1600 cars and production cars.
The gravel ground gives more than a chance to the 4WD drivers, such Piero Longhi and Alex Fiorio with Subaru Impreza STi, and Franco Cunico, Gigi Galli and several other drivers with Mitsubishi Lancer. This event forecast is being confirmed just by the first stage, where Longhi is terribly fast as the WRC drivers. All the rest of the production car drivers populate the stage grid up to the ninth place, where we can find the first Super1600 car. As expected in the Italian series, it's the Fiat Punto Super1600 driven by Paolo Andreucci and codriven by Anna Andreucci, who positively impresses the crowd for the times, but there is another Fiat driver who really wants to battle in the Super1600, namely Andrea Dallavilla, supported by HF Grifone team. The rest of the Super1600 is far behind, Renato Travaglia, the Italian rally champion, is only 32th and Giandomenico Basso, the current leader of the Italian championship 2003, is only 29th.
The second stage is not so different, but Andrea Dallavilla scores much better than Andreucci and overtakes him in the leaderboard.The Brescia's driver doesn't enjoy his pace of the SS2 that he has to pay more than 3 minutes on Andreucci for an important puncture.
After the first ballet of the three stages of the day, the gap of the Super1600
cars over the gr.N cars is important and Andreucci is at 1'26"2 from Longhi. The
round will be a battle only for 4WD drivers and the Super1600 men will get few
points.
The fourth stage has still Andreucci consolidating his Super1600 dominance, with
Aghini, the Peugeot works driver, being not capable to follow him in the scoreboard.
The rest of the Super1600 are at more than 2' from the Procar driver. Travaglia,
Ceccoli, Basso, Scorcioni, and Bizzarri are grouped in a 15 seconds frame. Dallavilla,
much far in the scoreboard, still tries to recover his disaster of SS3 and paces
same times of the best Super1600 drivers, hoping in bad luck also of the other
challengers. Andrea Perego, at the wheel of Opel Corsa Super1600, has a technical
trouble and gives up on the SS4. Fifth stage is won in the class by Dallavilla,
just 1 second faster than Andreucci: this good scratch let him approach the rest
of the Super1600 drivers, although he is still 30th overall. The sixth stage is
however disappointing for the Fiat drivers: Giandomenico Basso with Trico Motorsport's
Punto and Scorcioni with the Procar's Fiat Punto, have to retire. This is an hard
stop for the current leader of the Italian championship. After the second group
of stages of the first leg, Piero Longhi confirms his superb pace and his car's,
placing himself between the two WRC drivers Grossi and Navarra, blocked by a puncture
of the sixth stage. Andreucci keeps the Super1600 leadership paying 3 minutes
over the first, with his class gap at 1'16" on Aghini and his Peugeot 206 Super1600.
The last two stages of the day are not very interesting, because Andreucci starts his administration and leaves some seconds to his direct challengers.
Event summary: leg 2
The second leg of Rally of San Marino confirms expectations of the first leg. The levels of the fields dictate the response of the superiority of 4WD gr.N cars over Super1600 class, with notable exceptions.
The exception is however the classic rule in the Italian Rally Championship 2003 and it is represented by Paolo Andreucci and his Fiat Punto Super1600, developed by N Technology and brought on the stages by the Procar team. The Tuscan driver didn't attack any gr.N position, but took great advantage from important retires in the production drivers, mainly Franco Cunico (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 7) and Luca Cantamessa (Subaru Impreza STi).
Clearing the WRC drivers from the final scoreboard, because they don't get points for the Italian championship, but only for the Challenge Rally Terra, Piero Longhi wins virtually the event, Florio is second, while Andreucci is third overall. If you consider the WRC cars and the event itself, the victory goes to Andrea Navarra with Aimont Racing's Subaru Impreza WRC, and second place is for Pucci Grossi with Errepi Racing's Ford Focus WRC.
Talking about the the Super1600 class, Paolo Andreucci drives the whole second leg administering the gap gained during the first leg and he only gives seconds over seconds to Andrea Aghini and Renato Travaglia, who finish respectively at 18" and 55" from the Fiat driver.
This result let him overtaking Giandomenico Basso in the Italian classification, who slips in the third position, because of the maximum performance of Piero Longhi, who is now second overall.
Other Fiat drivers are however less lucky, with Ceccoli, 12th, Dallavilla, 14th, and Bettega, 17th, so they don't get so many points to Fiat for constructors championship, where Fiat still dominates over Subaru and Mitsubishi. Final note also for Bizzarri, at the wheel of Renault Clio Super1600 of Mitos Racing Team, who finishes the event in 15th overall standing.
Pictures
I thank Photocris for some exclusive shots for Puntopower.com and jwrc.com.
