Giandomenico Basso won the Madeira Rally in his Fiat Grande Punto for the third time in four years, by a remarkable small margin of 3.5 seconds. Apart from the initial superspecial staged on the seafront of Funchal, Basso led from start to finish on the two-day all-asphalt event. Towards the end of the event he had pulled out a lead of a quarter minute or so on of Portuguese Peugeot driver Bruno Magalhaes, but four stages from the end he spun and his lead fell to 8.9 seconds. He had already survived a gearbox problem at mid-distance. Magalhaes made best time on the remaining three stages but just failed to win. Peugeot cars took second through to ninth places overall. Basso’s win was a major encouragement for the beleaguered Fiat team, with Basso now pulling ahead in the FIA’s European championship, but fifth placed Peugeot driver Kris Meeke still leads the IRC series.

Seventeen Super 2000 cars were among the 69 starters on this mid-Atlantic event, which was held for the 50th occasion in very hot conditions. IRC series leader Kris Meeke found the mountainous terrain an unknown speciality but he maintained his speed, with his Kronos teammates Nicolas Vouilloz (last year’s winner) who finished fourth, and Freddy Loix who came sixth. Magalhaes and Madeiran driver Alexandre Camacho finished ahead. The Kronos team are hoping for technical improvements to their cars before the next IRC rally, the Barum Rally in the Czech Republic. The Proton team finished in a disappointing 11th place with the Satria Neo driven by Guy Wilks, on an event in which there were very few retirements amongst the leading drivers. With competition at the Barum Rally expected to be even tougher than here, with Evgeniy Novikov planning to compete in as Skoda and Andreas Mikkelsen due to make his debut in the Opel Corsa S2000 as well.

3mmm

Final classification
1 Giandomenico Basso/Mitia Dotta    Fiat Grande Punto S2000  3h09m55.4s
2 Bruno + Carlos Magalhaes          Peugeot 207 S2000        +3.5sec
3 Alexandre Camacho/Pedro Calado    Peugeot 207 S2000        +41,7s
4 Nicolas Vouilloz/Nicolas Klinger  Peugeot 207 S2000        +49.4s
5 Kris Meeke/Paul Nagle             Peugeot 207 S2000        +1m21.9s
6 Freddy Loix/Frederic Miclotte     Peugeot 207 S2000        +1m28.4s
7 Miguel Nunes/Victor Calado        Peugeot 207 S2000        +4m57.9s
8 Corrado Fontana/Carlo Cassina     Peugeot 207 S2000        +5m50.6s
9 Michal Solowow/Maciej Baran       Peugeot 207 S2000        +7m29.9s
10 Filipe Freitas/Daniel Figueiroa  Renault Clio S1600       +10m22.4s

Retirements
Luca Rossetti/Matteo Chiarcossi     Fiat Grande Punto S2000  accident stage 16
Bernardo Sousa/Jorge Carvalho       Ford Grande Punto S2000  engine   stage 5

Leaders: Stage 1 Meeke, stages 2-21 Basso.
Sprinters: Basso won 10 stages, Magalhaes 6, Meeke & Rossetti 2, Vouilloz 1.

IRC standings: Meeke 34, Kopecky 29, Loix & Basso 27, Vouilloz 19, etc.
ERC standings: Basso 59, Solowow 51, Fontana 49, Donchev 43, Betti 31, etc.