The forthcoming Rally del Casentino will be a decisive turning point in the fate of the protagonists of the International Rally Cup, on the one hand because it is the penultimate round of the series and on the other hand because the allocation coefficient increases of the points awarded due to the event scheduled for the weekend will rise to 1.25.
On July 7th and 8th, three Rally Sport Evolution cars will compete, starting with the Peugeot 208 Rally4, which will be entrusted to Emanuele Danesi together with Andrea Sarti.
The driver of the turbo French is currently second in the Prestige 2-Wheel Drive Trophy and leads the chasing group by just a few points.
“We raced here last year,” says Danesi, “and we’re expecting a really tough race because of the temperatures that will put our bodies and the car to the test.” It’s one of the most complicated races of the championship and Talla will be make the difference at night. We have to stay very focused when managing the car. We’re confident in the good work done at Taro but know that the Super 1600 will start with an advantage over us given the slippery asphalt and few restarts. We will do our best to fight with the first ones.”
The same mission, attacking the summit from second place, where Mirko Carrara will be the protagonist and Matteo Sanfilippo in the Rally4 / R2 Trophy.
For him a Peugeot 208 R2, made available by the racing team from Ranica.
“We’re going to the Casentino to fight for victory,” says Carrara, “but we’re aware that it’s going to be a difficult race. The tests are very fast and tend to get very dirty. The last special stage, the nearly thirty-kilometre-long Talla, which has to be mastered at night, will decide the final classification. We will do our best and try to take advantage of the 1.25 coefficient as well.”
A Casentino dedicated to the training of Giovanni Giaquinto after missing a first round of the IRC that did not allow him to compete for the noble districts of the Rally5 Trophy.
The third pick from the Bergamo team will once again team up with Debora Malvermi for the second outing of the Renault Clio Rally5, looking for the right alchemy with the car.
“We’re a long way behind in the overall standings,” says Giaquinto, “because we only drove at the Taro this year and because we presented ourselves with a new car to get to know each other.” I’ve raced here for several years and I’ve got quite a few things on Satisfaction achieved, such as some podiums in the class. We’ve made some set-up changes to our Clio but expectations aren’t the best as the car is new to us and also difficult. The Casentino route is always beautiful and very selective. I personally like it very much and traditionally it will be a weekend complicated by the heat. As in previous editions, we expect a lot of fun.”
