The San Marino Rally is approaching the interval of the most intense day of the competition, with the crews competing for the Italian Absolute Rally Championship and the Italian Rally Gravel Championship who have returned to the city for the only foreseen assistance.
After five special stages, four of these in today’s morning, the best is again Nikolay Gryazin with Konstantin Aleksandrov on Skoda Fabia Rally2 thanks to an impressive series of scratches. Four victories in the individual special stages for the driver coming from the WRC2 World Championship, actually in the race for the gravel but transparent for the overall.
Gryazin: “I still haven’t found my pace on these particular stages, but I’m still satisfied. I’m also using these kilometers to test various setups, more extreme or less, in view of all my world championship commitments and not”.
Andrea Crugnola, Pietro Elia Ometto, FPF Sport, Citroen C3 Rally2
Photo by: ACI Sports
Behind him in second position instead there is the leader of the tricolor top flight Andrea Crugnola, navigated by Pietro Ometto on the Citroen C3 Rally2, now 14.8” from the top.
The reigning champion from Varese improved above all in the second part of the initial stage in which he tried to keep up with Gryazin, and recorded the second fastest time both on the long 12km “Lunano” and on the short “Terra di San Marino” of 4.9km km.
Two results that allowed him to overtake Paolo Andreucci and Rudy Briani, aboard the Skoda Fabia, leader of the Gravel Championship now 17” from the top, second for his special Italian classification behind Gryazin.
“So far it’s going extremely well – says Crugnola on his return to the Service Park – I’ve had a really good time with both the Citroen and the Pirellis and the team is doing an excellent job, even if the competition is a lot and of the highest level. We’re still halfway through the race so we need to stay focused.”
“Both the car and our MRFs performed well in this first half – comments Andreucci – however we suffered from starting first, thus cleaning the way for the others. Given the advantage over his pursuers and seeing that Gryazin is far ahead, now we could also start managing ”.
Fabio Andolfi, Nicolò Gonella, Skoda Fabia R5 Evo
Photo by: ACI Sports
Further behind in fourth position is Fabio Andolfi with Nicolò Gonella on another Skoda. Even the Savonese showed an increasing performance in the morning, which is allowing them to rebuild their ranking despite the 10” penalty suffered on the opening day for delay in exiting the service park.
Fifth place for Giandomenico Basso and Lorenzo Granai, 34.3” behind Gryazin-Aleksandrov, still a step behind their direct rivals for the overall standings on the Skoda Fabia.
Third place for the CIR Terra for the Florentine Tommaso Ciuffi navigated by the young Pietro Cigni on a Skoda, who is managing to assert himself among the specialists on dirt roads, but also in the overall comparison which puts him in sixth overall position at 44.8”.
Paolo Andreucci, Rudy Briani, Team MRF Tyres, Skoda Fabia R5 Evo
Photo by: ACI Sports
Behind him are two other highly rated CIRT crews, both on Skodas, such as Enrico Oldrati with Elia De Guio and Umberto Scandola with Daniele Michi, who instead is suffering from problems with the differential which are slowing him down. Massimiliano Tonso with Massimo Bizzocchi and the home driver Jader Vagnini with Martina Musiari, both on Skoda, entered the top ten positions 1′ from the top, just 1” apart.
In the Absolute Two Wheel Drive Italian Rally Championship it would seem that Gianandrea Pisani and Andrea Colapietro have found someone capable of putting them in check: Fabio Farina and Gabriele Zanni, who also won a scratch and are now only 3” behind.
Davide Pesavento, the current CIAR Junior leader with Marco Frigo, instead took off a little and now has a 10” margin over his ACI Team Italia mates; right now the Nerobutto brothers are the only ones who can attempt to overtake in the second part of the race. Davide Negri and Marco Zegna are emerging in the challenge between the N5s.
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