The 7°Rally di Roma Capitale awaiting the protagonists of the Italian and European Rally Championships

The challenge among the big names of CIR and those of ERC is going to be interesting on the 16 tests from the start in Castel Sant'Angelo to the final show in Ostia, going through all the stages in the province of Frosinone. Among the Italians, Basso, Campedelli, Crugnola, Rossetti and the youngsters of the Italian Rally Junior Championship.
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Rome, Tuesday, July 16th, 2019 – The Italian Rally Championship is back on the tarmac after the gravel of the Rally Italia Sardegna, with the 7th Rally di Roma Capitale. The event organized by Motorsport Italia with the support of ACI Sport is also valid as FIA European Rally Championship, the highest series in Europe. The rally near Rome will take place this coming weekend and will span a total liason of 849.72 km. The rally will get underway on Friday, July 19th from Castel Sant’Angelo, in the heart of the city of Rome, will go through several municipalities in the Frosinone area and will reach its conclusion on Sunday, July 21st in Ostia with the two power stages in the late afternoon. The headquarters of the rally will be again in Fiuggi.

The Rally di Roma is ready to welcome all the protagonists of these two prestigious championships. The main protagonists of the Italian Rally Championship will be present, including some with an important past in the European Championship like Giandomenico Basso and Luca Rossetti. The driver from Treviso is leading the charts at 49.50 points and will have to defend his position alongside his co-driver Lorenzo Granai on the Skoda Fabia R5 fielded by Team Loran and Metior. Luca Rossetti is only three points adrift Basso and, together with co-driver Elena Mori, will defend Citroen Italia’s colours on the official C3. Simone Campedelli will also aim to the win. He already won the rally in 2017 with Tania Canton as they will take the new Ford Fiesta F5 evo 2019 of M-Sport to the debut with Orange 1 Racing. Andrea Crugnola is currently fourth with co-driver Pietro Ometto, but this time they will compete on Skoda Fabia R5.

In CIR Asphalt, the current leader of CIRA Rudy Michelini will be on the Skoda Fabia R5 as Antonio Rusce, Marcello Razzini and Alessio Profeta. Giacomo Scattolon will also be present on Hyundai I20 R5 this time.

Big names will also contest the FIA European Rally Championship. After the gravel roads of Latvia and Poland, the challenge moves back to the tarmac and the Pole Lukasz Habaj (Skoda Fabia R5) is leading the standings from Alexey Lukyanuk (Citroen C3). The Russian was back to the victory in Poland and stands now 11 points shy of the Polish leader but is ready to face the rally that he won last year from Giandomenico Basso. Some other protagonists of the European Championship at the start are Chris Ingram (Skoda Fabia), who will try and defend his lead in ERC1 Junior from the attacks of Filip Mareš (Skoda Fabia). Paulo Nobre (Skoda Fabia R5) will also be present for his “home rally” as he is a Motorsport Italia driver.

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The race in Rome is going to be an important event also for the 2WD Italian and Junior Championships. In the 2WD Championship, the leader Tommaso Ciuffi will not have the challenge of his main rival Luca Panzani, but the competition with Rachele Somaschini, Davide Nicelli, Jacopo Trevisani and Patrizia Perosino, all on Peugeot 208 R2 will be quite tough. Nicelli will also fight for the Peugeot single-make trophy with Giorgio Cogni and Alessandro Nerobutto. The fight in CIR Junior will involve the five Ford Fiesta R2 of Under25 classification Marco Pollara, l Giuseppe Testa, Mattia Vita, Andrea Mazzocchi and Pasquale Pucella.

Among the most awaited Italian underdogs,Andrea Nucita will be at the start on the Abarth 124 Rally challenging the RGT of Zelindo Melegari and Dariusz Polonski. Umberto Scandola on Hyundai I20 R5 is back to the rally in Rome after the unlucky exit on the San Marino’s gravel in CIRT. This is going to be an important race for him, as he was successful on these roads in 2015 and 2016.

The race of the R1 cars led by Daniele Campanaro on Ford Fiesta will be quite interesting as he will compete with about ten Suzuki Swift R1 RSTB 1.0. Fabio Poggio is currently leading the pack but is chased by Simone Rivia and Andrea Scalzotto.

In the pictures, some moments of Rally di Roma Capitale Edition 2018