A trio of rally discipines kicked off the 2022 FIA Motorsport Games. Team Italy was the form nation in Thursday’s early action at Circuit Paul Ricard, topping two disciplines across the afternoon.
Roberto Dapra and Luca Guglielmetti were made to fight for their spot at the head of the times in the main qualifying Special Stage for Rally4 competitors. Their Peugeot 208 only narrowly got the better of Team Turkey by 0.394s, with Ali Turkkan and Ahmet Burak Erdener’s Ford Fiesta in hot pursuit. Just 0.7s covered the top three, with Team Spain’s Oscar Palomo and Rodrigo Sanjuan (Peugeot 208) in third place.
Italy also headed the way in the Historic Rally times throughout the afternoon thanks to scorching speed from Andrea ‘Zippo’ Vivian in his mighty Audi Quattro, which left the Italians 7.9s clear. Closest to their pace was the Czech Republic thanks to Vojtěch Štajf and Vladimir Zelinka (Opel Kadett Coupe).
Rally2 was much closer, however, as less than four seconds covered the top five. Team Estonia led the Special Stage with a sterling effort by James Michael Morgan and Georg Linnamäe in their Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 to pip Team Türkiye and their Skoda Fabia pairing of Orhan Avcioglu and Burcin Korkmaz by just 0.889s. Team Spain was a close third as Jose Maria Lopez and Borja Rozada were just over a second adrift in their Hyundai i20 to make it three different manufacturers in the top three.
Rally competitors will be back in action tomorrow, with stages two through seven and a super special stage taking place across Friday.