Il Rally of Alba it was a great sporting party that offered entertainment for two days on over 120 timed kilometers between the asphalts of Langhe, Monferrato and Roero. To steal the show in the fourth act of Sparco Absolute Italian Rally Championship They were Nikolay Gryazin and Konstantin Aleksandrov, in a Skoda Fabia Rally 2. The crew from Wrc2 showed their muscles, in addition to the great preparation that allowed them to put all the protagonists of the top national series behind them, since the third special stage, with 4 wins out of 9 addressed. This is the third foreigner to sign the roll of honor of the Rally di Alba, at the sixteenth edition, after the French cannibal Sebastian Loeb and the Irish Craig Breen, two other names from the World Championship.
But looking at the Ciar classification, it is Crugnola with Ometto who has the better of his opponents with an absolute second place and first in the Championship.
The Italians in the running for the title
The Italian crews made the race according to the championship since the foreigners, not registered, are “transparent” for the assignment of the score. So they come out again with full loot Andrea Crugnola and Pietro Elia Ometto in a Citroen C3 Rally2, who won their second seasonal success in the Ciar (after the opening race at Il Ciocco) and reached the top of the general classification. Excellent performance of the Varese rider, who always appeared in control of the situation despite the minimum gaps from the championship rivals and the many pitfalls of a course with very fast timed sections, more similar to international rallies, with continuous grip changes and many variables to complicate the situation . Crugnola, however, maintained Gryazin’s wake up to close in second overall position at 11.9 ”. With two tests won in crucial moments.
He tried it all the way too Fabio Andolfi with Manuel Fenoli, on another Skoda, third with a gap of 15.9 ”. The Savona did not get an encore, despite an excellent start with the success in the short Power Stage at the beginning of the rally. Then he repeated himself in the first and last special on Saturday, which allowed him to hit the third consecutive podium in the absolute.
Numerous names known in Alba
Among the 184 crews at the start there were many profiles of international caliber, of which only a few managed to make space among the standard bearers of the championship. Good performance of the New Zealanders Hayden Paddon and John Kennard in a Hyundai i20 Rally2, fourth with 23.9 ” from the top, returning to a tarmac rally after four years. Performance up during the course of the race also for the Frenchman Stephane Lefebvre with Andy Malfoy in a Citroen C3 Rally2, who was impressed by the charm of the tests and the pace of the national drivers. In sixth position the multiple Italian champion returns to the limelight of the Italian top flight Paolo Andreucci, with Rudy Briani on Skoda, this time from outside the rankings for the Ciar. After two seasons on the dirt roads of the Italian Rally Terrain Championship, the Garfagnino accepted the challenge for a development stage on asphalt with MRF Tires tires, but he did not hold back and set interesting times in comparison with the rivals of the recent past. . Among these precisely Giandomenico Basso and Lorenzo Granai who entered at high altitude to reach the points of fourth place for the championship.