Giandomenico Basso and Mitia Dotta, Ford Fiesta, lead the first leg of the Rallye Sanremo

After the initial twists, the long night stage of 44 kilometers saw the retirement due to incident of one of the favourites for the final win, the Finn Juho Hanninen competing in IRC.

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12/10/2012 - Sanremo (Im). Twists continue at the Rallye of Sanremo that confirms all its difficulties. After the exit of Scandola in the early stages, the long and frightened night stage of 44 kilometres has been fatal for one of the main protagonists of the IRC championship, Juho Hanninen, on Skoda, who had to stop due to an incident.
The stage allowed Giandomenco Basso to increase his advantage to the closest rival, Jan Kopecky, the team mate of Hanninen at Skoda. For the Italian on Ford the gap starts to be important and could also be decisive even if the race is still long. Basso now leads Kopecky by 25"6 while Perico is now third and has a gap of more than 1'00 to the top. Paolo Andreucci, who competes now only to get reach yet another Italian title was pushed down to the sixth position after the night run. Amazing performance from Simone Campedelli as he managed to take his Citroen Ds3 R3 in absolute seventh place.

In the Italian Junior championship, Mikko Pajunen went off track which makes it easier to Andrea Nucita to cruise towards the final win.

The race as mentioned is still long though. Tomorrow six more stages are in programme for at total of nearly sixty timed kilometers. Classic and very difficult stages are scheduled too as the Colle Langan, the Passo Teglia and Colle d'Oggia that contributed to write the history of this rallye.

Classification after 4 stages: 1. Basso- Dotta (Ford Fiesta RRC) in 58'59" 3; 2. Kopecky - Dresler (Skoda Fabia Super 2000) at 25"6; 3. Perico - Carrara (Peugeot 207 Super 2000) at 1'06"6; 4. Albertini - Scattolini (Peugeot 207 Super 2000) at 1'12"9 ; 5. Breen - Nagle (Peugeot 207 Super 2000) at 1'13"3 ; 6. Andreucci - Andreussi (Peugeot 207 Super 2000) at 1'19"5; 7. Campedelli - Fappani (Citreon Ds3 R3) at 3'14"9; 8.. Turan - Zsiros (Ford Fiesta Super 2000) at 3'18"9 ; 9. Vescovi - Gussi (Renault Clio R3 C) at 3'35"7; 10. Michelini - Bosi (Citreon Ds3R3) a 3'43".

The programme of leg 2 (Saturday 13 October) follows (GMT+2): PS5 "Colle Langan" (09:05);PS6 "Passo Teglia "(09:39);PS7 "Colle d'Oggia" (10:33);PS8 "Colle Langan" (13:52);PS9 "Passo Teglia" (14:26); PS10 "Colle d'Oggia" (15:20). Arrival and prize ceremony at 17:25.

Web live commentary available as well as quotes of the protagonists on www.acisportitalia.it