Tutta Terra Toscana 2004
First round of Italian Championship starting from Volterra
event preview
The new Italian Rally Championship 2004 starts at Volterra, in Pisa's province on Friday 27th and Saturday 28th. The Championship proposes the Fiat brand to defend the titles won in the past season, the Manufacturers and the Drivers' one by Paolo Andreucci. The last season ended with the astonished performance of the Fiat Punto Abarth, which brought his top drivers Paolo Andreucci and Giandomenico Basso to the highest standings of the final classification and let Fiat to conquer the Manufacturers Championship.
At the startline of the Tuscan event there are seven Fiat Punto Abarth - who is literally the car to challenge - driven by the Andreucci, Basso, Stefano Bizzarri at his first experience with the Fiat car, the youngsters Alessandro Bettega and Matteo Gamba - already starring young talents in 2003 - the Welsh guy Leon Pesticcio at his first time in the Italian series and Luca Hoelbling.
The Punto Abarth drivers, apart Andreucci and Basso, winners of the last two editions of the Fiat works trophy, will take part to the Trofeo Fiat Abarth 2004. The Punto is not the only Fiat car engaged in this event and in the upcoming Italian Championship. This year is even the third edition of the Trofeo Fiat Stilo Abarth, real school for young drivers who really want to emerge in the rallying world. There are fifteen crews registered with a Stilo Abarth leaving the start of the Rally Tutta Terra Toscana. The Stilo Abarth Rally take part to the Italian Rally Championship, like the Trofeo Punto, but with a shorter programme of eight rounds.
The programme of Rally Tutta Terra Toscana makes provision for two legs with 14 special stages entirely run on gravel, for a total amount of 161 timed kms. The start of first leg has been on February 27th at 15.30, with the arrival at Volterra at 20.10, after four stages. Second leg is going to start and arrive at Volterra from 7.30 to 18.50. After the Tutta Terra Toscana, the Italian Championship goes on with Rally of Ciocco (March 18-20th), Mille Miglia (April 1-3rd), Costa Smeralda (May 6-8th), San Marino (May 27-29th), Salento (June 17-19th), San Martino di Castrozza (July 8-10th), Alpi Orientali (August 27-29th), Adriatic (September 10-12th), Sanremo (October 8-9th), and Targa Florio (November 18-20th).
First leg goes to Production drivers
report after first leg
After an eve overloaded of suspence and even too rich of doubts posed by the weather, which gave also some snow, the Italin Rally Championship started with its first gravel round, the Rally Tutta Terra Toscana. On February 27th at 15.31, from the industrial area "la Fila" in Peccioli, one of the most awaited series took its beginning. Ninetyseven crews passed the regular verification and moved to the four timed tracks of the first leg, two stages repeated twice, the world famous Riparbella and the new Scornello, about 43 km of timed roads, which spotted a great level of competition, mixed up with the uncertainity of the road conditions.
After four legs the leadership is in the hands of the Novara based Subaru works driver Piero Longhi, who guessed the tyre choice and got the topmost standing in an authoritative way. The second position is filled by another Subaru STi, driven by the expert Rimini's Giuseppe"Pucci" Grossi, who confirmed his strong pace on tough tracks; the third position is currently to Andrea Navarra, Longhi's team mate with the second works Subaru car, who made Paolo Andreucci fail the podium in the provisional leaderboard of the first leg.
Paolo Andreucci, at the wheel of the Fiat Punto Abarth, however impressed too much with respect of all the rest of the Super1600 crews, as just expected from the Tuscan driver's talent and his experience of two years of domination in the Super1600 class. The top ten positions were really crowded and animated, with the Veneto's Eugeni and Versilian driver Dati, both with Subaru Impreza STi, who were stronger than Fiorio (Subaru Impreza), Cantamessa (Mitsubishi Lancer), Travaglia (Peugeot 206), and Basso (Fiat Punto), all of them fighting with setup troubles. Today there are going on further ten special stages, with the start from Piazza dei Priori at 7.30 and the arrival at 18.50, where everybody could know the first winner of the new championship edition 2004.
Andreucci performs well in bad weather conditions
final report
Really charming, uncertain, and rich of thrilling notes, was the tenth Rally Tutta Terra Toscana, first round of the Italian Rally Championship 2004, acted on Friday 27th and Saturday 28th, on the dusty roads of Pisa's province, the same roads which characterized the World Rally Championship's Rally Sanremo, when it was run on gravel. The race, organized by GIP Servizi e Promozioni, had its difficults moments, being constrasted by bad weather, which gave a lot of rain and show for free, but gave also great sporting ones. The event was won by the Cesena's Andrea Navarra, codriven by his wife-and-codriver Simona Fedeli, with the works Subaru Impreza STi. For three parts on four, the race has been dominated by Piero Longhi and Danilo Fappani with the first works Subaru Impreza STi, really strong to get the topmost position after the first stages, maximizing the tyre choice with a perfect set. Longhi's leadership resisted for ten special stages, when he rolled off and had to leave his car out of the road and retire. Since that episode his teammate leaded the rally and kept it until the end, being even able to pace the return of the incited crews Emanuele Dati/Alex Giusti (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII) and Alex Fiorio/Vittorio Brambilla (Subaru Impreza STi) and concluding with a gap over sixty seconds. The final second position went to Alex Fiorio, who maximum attacked in the last stage Ulignano, where he fixed the best scratch time, with Dati paying only 14"3.
The fourth standing was for another AWD car, formerly a Subaru, the Veneto's Eugeni-Businaro crew, always in the top positions of the entire event, although afflicted with some issue with the rear suspension setup, which obliged them to occur too many spins. Fifth position, and clearly first between the crews with two wheel drive, went to the current Italian champions Paolo Andreucci and Anna Andreussi (Fiat Punto Abarth), who started very quickly in the first leg, but facing the mud and the snow in the second leg's morning. Nevertheless those worst conditions, they reacted very well and managed amazing times along the stages, very often ahead of several all wheel drive cars.
The Peugeot works driver Renato Travaglia ended in the sixth position with the Peugeot 206 Super1600, heading the Ligurian Sandro Sottile, suffering two failures of halfaxes, whilst eighth position was for Andrea Dallavilla with a Renault Clio Super1600, who performed well only in the second leg, with the right tyre choice. The top ten standings are filled by the Giandomenico Basso (Fiat Punto Abarth), who achieved to get the ninth standing in the last stage, overtaking the Siena's Walter Pierangioli (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VII), an honorable local starring driver. Bad luck for Rimini's Giuseppe "Pucci" Grossi, after being second for almost the first half of the rally, had to retire for troubles at the gearbox and the clutch after the half. In the one make championships Bizzarri succeeded in the Trofeo Fiat Punto Abarth, and Christian Chemin in the Trofeo Stilo Abarth, whilst Tognozzi won the new one make trophy Peugeot 206 RC, who won also the class gr.N 2WD cars. The Brescia's driver Mazzoleni won the MG Trophy and Sardinian Carta the Opel Astra Trophy.
Final classification
- Navarra-Fedeli (Subaru Impreza STi) in 1:54í35"7
- Fiorio-Brambilla (Subaru Impreza STi) at 50"4
- Dati-Giusti (Subaru Impreza STi) at 1í04"6
- Eugeni-Businaro (Subaru Impreza STi) at 3í56"8
- Andreucci-Andreussi (Fiat Punto Abarth) at 4í38"4
- Travaglia-Granai (Peugeot 206 S1600) at 5'28"2
- Sottile-Nari (Subaru Impreza STi) at 6'29"8
- Dallavilla-Canton (Renault Clio) at 6'41"6
- Basso-Dotta (Fiat Punto Abarth) at 7'44"7
- Pierangioli-Castorina (Mitsubishi Lancer) at 8'21"7
Pictures
All the pictures are here on courtesy of the respective photographers, displayed in the pictures. Thanks to Massimo Bettiol, Bacigalupi, Marco Donati.
