"Pedro" wins the Rally San Remo Storico

11.04.14
the Italian classic in San Remo has been won by the 2013 European Champion, "Pedro", although he is not in contention to keep his title.

The Italian "Pedro" (Lancia Rally 037), winner of the 2012 and 2013 FIA European Historic Sporting Rally Championships in Category 4, carried off the Rally San Remo Storico in the company of his teammate Emmanuele Baldaccini. This was the Italian's first appearance of the year in the FIA Championship, of which San Remo was already the third event after those run in Spain (Rally de Espana Historico and Rally Costa Brava) in March. In fact, "Pedro" is not registered for the 2014 edition of the FIA Championship, as his programme for this season is focussed on Italy.

Leading the rally from start to finish, "Pedro" set the best scratch time in 4 of the 9 special stages, including the first three.

On the first day, the arrival of the rain during the first timed sectors prompted quite a number of changes among "Pedro's" pursuers, calling for difficult decisions as to the choice of tyres. After being forced to drive carefully in two special stages on very wet roads while shod with dry-weather tyres, Enrico Brazzoli (Lancia Rally 037) then made up for it by snatching the final second place, 40 seconds adrift of "Pedro" and over a minute ahead of Lucio Da Zanche (Porsche Carrera RSR). Brazzoli and Da Zanche have both set their sights on the European title, in Category 4 and Category 2 respectively. In the provisional Championship classification, Da Zanche has a considerable points lead over Sweden's Mats Myrsell (Porsche Carrera RSR), fifth in San Remo, and Norway's Valter Jensen (Porsche Carrera RS). In Category 4, the provisional leader of the Championship is still the Spaniard Gonzalo Ambit (BMW 323i), the only one to have scored points in each of the three events run to date. Brazzoli holds equal second place with "Lucky" (Lancia Rally 037), who came fourth in San Remo with his navigator Fabrizia Pons, after losing a lot of time at the start of the run as a result of a flat tyre but then making a fine recovery.

Category 3 is led by Finland's Pentti Veikkanen (Porsche 911 SC), but with one fewer result the Austrian Carl Wagner (Porsche 911 SC) is only two little points behind. Having already won in Costa Brava, Wagner again dominated Category 3 in Italy, even allowing himself the luxury of lying second in the general classification for a while when the conditions were the most difficult.

In Category 1, Luigi Zampaglione (Porsche 911 S) has given a faultless performance so far, with 3 wins in 3 rallies, thereby totalling the maximum number of Championship points possible.

The Rally San Remo was coupled with a regularity event, the Coppa dei Fiori, counting towards the FIA Trophy for Historic Regularity Rallies. In the difficult game of respecting the time averages, the Italians Marcattilj-Calegari (Porsche 911) were victorious after a very close-fought battle against Luxembourg's Crucifix-Lambert (Ford Cortina Lotus) and Greece's Delaportas-Kontaratos (Alfa Romeo GTV). The same three crews hold the top three places in the provisional classification of the FIA Trophy.

The Historic Sporting Rally Championship will continue in Ireland with the Rally of the Lakes (2-4 May 2014), while the Historic Acropolis Rally will be the next rendezvous for the regularity rally specialists (5-8 June 2014).

To view the provisional classification of the FIA European Historic Sporting Rally Championship, click here.

To view the provisional classification of the FIA Trophy for Historic Regularity Rallies, click here.