Citroen’s young Spaniard quite literally dominated the final weekend of the Bologna Motor Show. Sordo won both the Night Sprint competition on Saturday evening and the Bettega Memorial Rallysprint this afternoon, getting the better of Italian driver Gigi Galli in a Ford Focus WRC on both occasions.

Bologna, 14 December 2008- Dani Sordo was the star protagonist of the final weekend of the Bologna Motor Show, dominating proceedings at the wheel of his factory Citroen C4 WRC running on Pirelli Scorpion tyres. The young Spaniard beat Italian driver Gigi Galli (Ford Focus WRC) in both of the main competitions held in Bologna. On Saturday evening, Sordo had the better of Galli during the night race known as the Bettega Memorial Night Sprint. Today, the 2005 Junior World Rally Champion once again defeated the Pirelli-equipped Ford Focus WRC of Galli, who triumphed on the Bettega Memorial Rallysprint back in 2005 and 2006.

Five-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb started off the event on Saturday afternoon by completing several laps of the 1020-metre circuit in his Citroen C4 WRC-Pirelli. The 2008 Bologna Motor Show then witnessed duels between aces such as Marcus Gronholm (Ford Focus WRC), Petter Solberg (Subaru Impreza WRC), Francois Duval (Subaru Impreza WRC) and Kris Meeke (Citroen Xsara WRC). The Italian drivers included Piero Longhi (Subaru Impreza WRC) and Simone Campedelli (Peugeot 307 WRC). All the competitors used Pirelli tyres throughout the event.

In the Bettega Memorial Rallysprint, Galli’s Pirelli-equipped Ford Focus beat Sordo during their first encounter, only to lose in the second heat. When they both went through to the final, the Italian once again beat Sordo to begin with, but the Spaniard then answered back with a time that was quickest of all round the short rallysprint track. The Citroen C4 WRC – running on Pirelli tyres like all the other competitors – then triumphed in the final heat thanks to some superb driving from Sordo.

“I’m obviously delighted to have won the two most important competitions here in Bologna,” he said. “For me it’s a big confidence boost, as I haven’t won since 2005. Pirelli‘s tyres worked very well even on this mixed surface of asphalt and gravel that was made yet more complicated by the rain. Adding my name to the list of Bettega Memorial Rallysprint winners is a big source of satisfaction, if you look at some of the great champions who have won this prestigious event in the past, and I hope now that it is a good omen for our 2009 season.“

The very first World Rally Championship of the Pirelli era has drawn to a close in Wales today, with the recently-crowned five-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb breaking his own record by claiming his 11th win in one season. Citroen-Pirelli has now taken the 2008 World Championship for Manufacturers, thanks also to a strong third place for Loeb’s team mate Dani Sordo.

Ice and frost was once again the order of the day for the final day of the Wales Rally Great Britain, which marked the end of the first World Championship held under the single tyre rule with Pirelli as the exclusive supplier.

 Despite these wintry conditions, the soft-compound Pirelli Scorpion tyres worked well in the tricky weather, contributing to a dramatic finish. The factory Ford Focus-Pirelli of Jari-Matti Latvala led from the opening day, but Loeb overcame the deficit on the final stage to win the rally by only 12.7 seconds and give Citroen its third manufacturers’ title.

The final day’s action consisted of two loops of two stages, totalling 96 competitive kilometres. With temperatures having dropped as low as minus six degrees centigrade overnight, there was plenty of ice and frost on the roads to catch out the competitors.


 Nonetheless the soft compound Pirelli Scorpion tyres proved that they had the capacity to heat up to temperature as quickly as possible, providing the drivers with as much grip as surfaces would allow. MotoGP ace Valentino Rossi (Ford Focus WRC) finished 12th his third WRC event.
 
The Production Car World Rally Championship (PWRC), which equally is exclusively equipped by Pirelli, was also settled on the Rally Great Britain. Austria’s Andreas Aigner finished second in the class, which was enough for the Mitsubishi driver to claim his inaugural PWRC title. The PWRC victory on the tricky roads of Great Britain was claimed by Patrick Flodin in a Subaru Impreza, the marque’s first Group N World Rally Championship victory in over a year.

 Mario Isola, Pirelli’s Rally Manager, concluded: “As could maybe have been expected, conditions on the Rally Great Britain in December were very cold and slippery. Nonetheless, our Scorpion tyres have coped well with the challenge and demonstrated a high degree of driveability, as has been the case throughout the whole of the year. It’s clear that when you have exactly the same tyre that needs to be used in a wide variety of places and weather conditions, it becomes a question of finding the best compromise – which we believe that we have found. It is also worth nothing that, contrary to some peoples’ fears before the start of the season, there has been an extremely limited number of punctures over the course of the year and this was also the case on the Wales Rally Great Britain. In conclusion, it has been an extremely successful first season for Pirelli, and now we look forward with optimism to 2009.”

The 16 year-old Italian driver won the contest between young up-and-coming talent that was a highlight of the opening day of this year’s Bologna Motor Show. Driving a Lotus Exige and Renault Clio, Nappi got the better of several other stars of the future in the worlds of rallying, circuit racing and motorbikes.

The accent is on youth at this year’s Bologna Motor Show. It’s a concept that is loyal to the philosophy behind the Pirelli Champions Cup, which saw drivers compete against each other at the wheel of Lotus Exiges supplied by the 2007 FIA WTCC Independents Cup winner Stefano d’Aste and Renault Clio R3s supplied by the well-known Munaretto Rally Team, equipped with Pirelli’s commercially-available PZero asphalt tyres. The drivers doing battle were amongst the most promising young talents in circuit racing, rallying and motorbikes. It was an important opportunity that Pirelli was happy to give to no fewer than eight young drivers.

In the end, it was 16-year-old Giovanni Nappi from Naples who climbed onto the top step of the podium. The Italian made his single-seater debut this year in Italy’s Formula Azzurra, ending his season with a win at the Adria circuit. Already he has shown himself capable of doing battle with the greatest emerging national talents. It is no coincidence that together with Edoardo Liberati and Andrea Cecchellero – who were also at the start of the Pirelli Champions Cup – Nappi has been selected for the Italian Motorsport Federation’s SuperCorso. Cecchellero once more showed his class by qualifying for the final in the Pirelli Champions Cup and taking a well-deserved second place.

In third place was Jarkko Nikara (aged 22), who won this year’s Pirelli Star Driver Shootout Europe, ahead of reigning Italian superbike champion Luca Scassa. Despite a strong showing, the other rally driver Stefano Albertini, reigning Formula Azzurra Champion Edoardo Liberati (aged 15), and bike racer Massimo Roccoli (who recently won the Italian Supersport 600 series) did not make it past the qualifying stages.

At the finish, Nappi said: “I would like to thank Pirelli and the Italian Federation, the CSAI, for giving me the opportunity to take part in this competition. To win at the Bologna Motor Show is fantastic. Apart from a problem in the final, before the second heat got underway, which meant that we had to switch cars, everything went really well.”
This new challenge also impressed Jarkko Nikara. He said: “It’s been a really interesting experience. I had never been to the Bologna Motor Show before and I am happy with my third place.”

For bike rider Luca Scassa this was a brand new experience as well. “It was the first time that I had ever driven a racing car or taken part in the Bologna Motor Show,” he said. “I really enjoyed myself, even though I took it carefully in order not to risk damaging the cars.”