18/06/2009: Double commitment for Abarth: in the IRC at Ypres and in the Italian Championship at San Marino

Four official Grande Punto Abarth S2000s will take part in two rallies this weekend. The fifth round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge takes place at Ypres in Belgium, where Italian Giandomenico Basso and Belgian Bernd Casier are entered with their respective co-drivers Mitia Dotta and Francis Caesamaeker; San Marino will be the theatre of the fifth round of the Italian Rally Championship, in which will participate Luca Rossetti, co-driven by Matteo Chiarcossi, and youngster Umberto Scandola, co-driven by Guido D’Amore.

The Ypres Rally all-asphalt route is very special. It runs mainly in the plain with a series of continual junctions. Despite this race being an expert affair, Basso won it in 2006. Together with Belgian Casier, who was hired for the occasion, he will face strong opposition from many official drivers from Peugeot (Freddy Loix, Nicolas Vouilloz and Kris Meeke), Skoda (Juho Hänninen, François Duval and Jan Kopecký), Volkswagen (Patrick Snijers) and Proton (Guy Wilks).

The event features two legs. The first one gets underway on Friday 19 June, at 5:30pm and finishes at 1:00am the following night after six special stages totalling 118km. Saturday, the second and last part of the race starts at 12:10pm and finishes at 10:30pm. It includes 10 special stages equal to 166.76km against the stopwatch.

In contrast, the San Marino Rally takes place on gravel roads. Friday 19 at 6:00pm there will be a spectators special stage called “circuit of San Marino”, which will serve as a prologue to Saturday's long day. Indeed, the second leg starts at 8:00am to finish at 8:00pm, with 10 special stages totalling 140.99km.

After his clear-cut win in the Targa Florio Rally, Luca Rossetti is to be considered as one of the favourites, as is his team-mate Umberto Scandola who has shown all his talent on the gravel roads of the Adriatic Rally. The Abarth drivers will face opposition from Paolo Andreucci, the official Peugeot driver, Renato Travaglia and Piero Longhi (both in Skodas), Andrea Navarra and Tony Gardemeister (Subaru).

A number of Grande Punto Abarth S2000s are entered by experienced drivers who can aim at achieving a good result, such as youngster Marco Signor, Emanuele Dati and Serkan Yazici, from Turkey.