Italian Rally News

[mousti]

Totally agree with Mirek, everywhere there is always some situations where sometimes they "bend the rules". Just bad sportmanship..

[Ucci]

Guys, don't mix ''apples with pears''; I deliberately wrote : do not list cases from WRC events-if you drive let say two stages in lenght more than 60-70 km, than it can happen that the crew will drive on liassion without ''rubber''. Totally understandable and can be ignored (as it is!!).
But on a short event like San Marino-if all other crews had enough profiled tyres and Scandola not and if he drove with this tyres on tarmac special (remember-3th and 4th stages were tarmac stages!) and if Umberto held with this act advantage (it must be proven; until than he is unguilty), than he should be disqualified. Also a reminder to the rest!
Mirek-please never mention following (quote): 'it has been definitely breached by thousands of drivers and I'm pretty sure that Ucci or Racing Lions were many times among them in the past as well ''-if you do not have a proof of this act or similar thing, shout up and do not mention it. What I hate are negative rumors that somebody cheated in the past. Give a proof (photo, camera shot...) or forget it.

[Mirek]

Mirek-please never mention following (quote): 'it has been definitely breached by thousands of drivers and I'm pretty sure that Ucci or Racing Lions were many times among them in the past as well ''-if you do not have a proof of this act or similar thing, shout up and do not mention it. What I hate are negative rumors that somebody cheated in the past. Give a proof (photo, camera shot...) or forget it.

In every rally, be it WRC or 70 km long rallysprint, there are many crews on completely worn tyres. Always. Most of them simply because they don't have money for new tyres. According to the rules all shall be disqualified. I don't speak specifically about deliberate cheating. Most of cases when this rule is breached is not intentional but it's still a violation of that rule. Rules don't make a difference if it was intentional violation or not. Do You finally know what I mean?

Even what You say is illogical. First You say that rules are same for everybody and than You say that this is no WRC event with long stages. That's pure contradiction. If the rule is same for everybody than everybody must be punished for violation of that rule. The simple fact is that this rule is ignored for good reason - as it is in 99% violated without intention of cheating. The rule exists solely because of road sections and I believe that in the past it was applied only if traffic police complained.

[Co-driven]

This year on Rally TransItapúa, firrst round of the Codasur Championship in Paraguay, Gustavo Saba and Marcos Miltos were disqualified. The first two stages of the rally were on tarmac (with gravel tyres) and they deliberately worn the tyres out, to make them close to a slick tyre and have some advantage. After each stage the officials inspected each drivers tyres and that's why they realized that noth Saba and Miltos had worn tyres.

[Ucci]

Even what You say is illogical. First You say that rules are same for everybody and than You say that this is no WRC event with long stages. That's pure contradiction. If the rule is same for everybody than everybody must be punished for violation of that rule. The simple fact is that this rule is ignored for good reason - as it is in 99% violated without intention of cheating. The rule exists solely because of road sections and I believe that in the past it was applied only if traffic police complained.

Yes, yes Mirek : all other drivers drove tarmac stage with gravel tyres with enough profile (you could not worn out them on so short gravel stages), just Umberto was there with very worn tyres, almost slicks ! You do not need to be a scientist to see that something was wrong. I do not say Umby& team were cheating-it must be proven ! But the fact is-tyres were totaly worn out (there is a nice photo on rallylink.it). Until Alpi Orientali at the end of August the court has to make a decission. I belive in their fair decission, until then I wish to Umby, Ucci, Basso & Co a pleasant holidays.
P.S. nobody mentioned Cempedelli-he was very very fast on the second day. Nice...

[Mirek]

Yes, yes Mirek : all other drivers drove tarmac stage with gravel tyres with enough profile (you could not worn out them on so short gravel stages), just Umberto was there with very worn tyres, almost slicks ! You do not need to be a scientist to see that something was wrong. I do not say Umby& team were cheating-it must be proven ! But the fact is-tyres were totaly worn out (there is a nice photo on rallylink.it). Until Alpi Orientali at the end of August the court has to make a decission. I belive in their fair decission, until then I wish to Umby, Ucci, Basso & Co a pleasant holidays.
P.S. nobody mentioned Cempedelli-he was very very fast on the second day. Nice...

I didn't say what You are trying to put in my mouth. I did say that if this rule shall be now out of the blue applied than almost all results of rally events held under FIA since this rule was created are in fact illegal (especially Loeb's victory in Cyprus 2009 which was 100% same case like this one). The rules simply state mandatory condition. It doesn't matter if the violation was intentional or not. Discussion about the cause of violation is completely irrelevant. Either the rule applies really for everybody or for nobody but to pick one driver to disqualify him is not correct (even if he really did it intentionally - which I believe he did). Just go to some Your local Slovenian rally to an entry CP of final service and check how many cars could be disqualified because their tyres are completely gone. Imagine You are their competitor. This rule gives You a tool how to remove some of Your opponents from final results.

[Munkvy]

The thing with protests is the protesting team has to put up money to be able to lodge a protest, so they have to be pretty certain they are right or risk losing that money if their protest isn't upheld.

However, anyone/team can protest the behaviour of another competitor/team. So they all have the right to do this if they see someone cheating, or even just mentioning to the CRO/CoC that they have seen something illegal. If they don't do that, they are disadvantaging themselves. The rules are meant to be followed, if you cheat/fail to comply, you are risking getting caught and a lot of the rules in rally work on an honour system, as the officials can't be everywhere, so you are reliant on your fellow competitors being honest, so sometimes you have to do something about that...

It's a calculated risk and sometimes someone will feel strongly enough about cheating to say something, although most of the time people just whinge. IF they did run with tyres that were low tread to get better grip (which makes sense as the tread blocks being shaved down means less tyre movement), then they did have an advantage and they got caught, that's only fair. Will be interesting to see what the outcome is.

[Mirek]

That's true but first of all rules shall be fully applicable without exceptions. The problem with this rule is that it is not. It was created to fit with legal requirements on road sections not because of competitive aspects. This rule is automatically violated by everyone who has very worn tyres. So without any real intention to cheat everybody with worn tyres can be disqualified based on this rule - if any of his opponents wants to and appeal.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure in this case it was intentional act by Scandola and his team. The problem is that nowhere in the rulebook it is said that only intentional violation of this rule is illegal. Therefore the rule is simply wrong and as such it's better to be ignored than to be used in random cases.

[Ucci]

Rally Casentino for I.R.C. championship (valid also for Mitropa), a very special guest with Nb.1. This will be very good training for him for the upcoming tarmac WRC events. I have no doubt that he we'll win by a huge margin.....

http://www.scuderiaetruria.net/publi...%20%202014.pdf

[Jarek Z]

Rally Casentino for I.R.C. championship (valid also for Mitropa), a very special guest with Nb.1. This will be very good training for him for the upcoming tarmac WRC events. I have no doubt that he we'll win by a huge margin.....

http://www.scuderiaetruria.net/publi...%20%202014.pdf

And here is the car of this special guest:
http://www.rallylink.it/diretteweb/i...ino/livrea.jpg