MOTORSPORT NEWS ARCHIVE
Fiat Punto dominates in motorsport debut
The Fiat Grande Punto has made crushing debut in motorsport,
with the Super2000 variant of Fiat's new small car dominating the weekend's
(18-19 March 2006) round of the Italian Rally Championship in the hands
of Paolo Andreucci and Anna Andreussi, clearly demonstrating not just
the potential of the new Fiat, but also the excitement and thrills that
are set to be provided by rally's newest competitor class.
In front of thousands of spectators on the Rally del Ciocco
the Fiat Grande Punto set a string of fastest stage times on day one,
leaving Paolo Andreucci and Anna Andreussi with the task on day two of
simply bringing the Super2000 car home safely through the final four timed
tests. They did this with relative ease, setting a second, third and two
sixth fastest times, to retain their half-minute cushion and finish with
a 34.6 advantage over Gianfranco Cunico in his Mitsubishi EVO XI.
Fiat team mate Andrea Navarra this morning climbed up the
rally leaderboard from his overnight 7th place, to finish 5th overall
this afternoon, 53.4 seconds adrift of the rally winner. After a very
solid day's performance yesterday, Navarra posted the fastest time on
this morning's opening stage (SS11), was second quickest on (SS13), and
third best on the final stage (SS14).
Italians rally fans turned out in their thousands today
and yesterday to see the birth of a new era of rally cars, the 'low-cost'
Super2000 machines, with their normally aspirated 275bhp 2.0-litre engines,
limited electronics, and mandatory four-wheel-drive transmissions supplied
by an FIA-officially designated company, and development budget of 150,000
euros. How would the brand-new N.Technology-developed Grande Punto Abarth
Rally contender compare to the latest-generation of GpN machines from
Subaru and Mitsubishi, with more than 300 bhp, was the question on everyone's
lips before the event - round one of the 2006 Italian Rally Championship
- kicked off this weekend?
By the end of Saturday, after Andreucci had torn up the
stages of Ciocco, there were no doubts remaining: these cars were pretty
quick and could hold their own in the GpN/4 class where they had been
homologated by the FIA.
The two new Fiat rally cars do lack the huge dollops of
torque required to really spin the big WRC tyres they are shod with, and
this lack of top-end torque was also noticeable as the cars were slightly
slower on Friday evening's spectator super-special stage as well as on
Saturday's two TV stages, as these three tests were laid out on the Ciocco
hill and they were completely uphill with very sharp sloped straight lines,
characteristics that allowed the superior torque of Subaru Impreza STi
and Mitsubishi Evo IX cars to make a difference.
On the rest of the rally's stages though, where a light
weight and superior handling capability were at a premium, the unfolding
events showed that the Fiat Grande Punto Abarth Rally and the basic idea
of Super2000 looks to be a pretty solid one. The N.Technology-developed
Fiats appeared to have been very well sorted and to be highly agile packages,
with their suspension and handling set-ups seeming to be almost on a par
with the bigger, more dramatic WRC machines.
Andreucci's vast knowledge and 'ownership' of the Fiat
Grande Punto Abarth Rally project, as well as his long experience of top-level
Italian rallying, made a real difference too, and while he stole the show
at the front of the event, his team-mate Andrea Navarra turned in a very
respectable mid top ten performance. After his engine failure in pre-event
testing last weekend there was much speculation on the stages that Navarra
was running a slightly 'detuned' engine, around 7-10bhp down on the lead
car, to allow him to get used to his new mount - his objective for the
event - and to complete the rally without any problems intervening.
©ItalianCar 2006
