Zoom Salo entering unknown territory with confidence

Thanks to the combined efforts of Vodafone, Pirelli, and the Ministry of Tourism of Portugal, Dani Sola will participate in the IRC's second round at Rally Portugal this week. The Spaniard will have a Fiat Abarth Grande Punto at his disposal bearing the colours of the Difisa Gaspa team.

Sola took part in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge's first event in Turkey early last month, where he declared himself more than satisfied with the handling of the car. Before encountering problems that prevented him from delivering good results, Sola at one point stood in second place overall at Rally Istanbul.

With this announcement, the Spanish driver will therefore be racing at an event that was not included in his initial programme. With priority now going to this international meet, he has decided to forfeit the third round of his country's Gravel Rally Championship taking place the same week-end, where he is currently fighting to retain the crown he won last year.

Rally Portugal is an unknown for Sola, a fact which only motivates him even more: "We are taking on a rally that I have never contended, with very long stages and many timed kilometres to run between services. By glancing at the entry list, we have an idea of the level of competition."

"It will be hard against the Portuguese drivers and IRC newcomers such as Manfred Stohl, François Duval or Didier Auriol, each with a Super 2000," he adds. "We will also have to keep an eye on Mitsubishi and Subaru Group N drivers, who will also have their word to say."

Sola is aware of the difficulties which make part of Rally Portugal: "The information we have shows that it is an event where punctures might be plentiful. The weather can also complicate things. As we saw in Istanbul, in the IRC, rallies are competed like sprints from start to finish. We therefore have to find our pace quickly."

The competitiveness demonstrated by the Peugeot 207 Super 2000 forced the Abarth engineers to work hard in preparing the Grande Punto for this round.

"We have added improvements to the differential and suspension settings after an engineering meeting held after the rally in Turkey," reports Dani Sola. "We conducted tests recently, but it will be important to validate the setup details during Thursday's shakedown."

"If we avoid any mechanical problems I'm sure we can sign a good result," he confidently concludes.

Daniel BASTIEN
© CAPSIS International