Argentinian Championship

[Damian Baldi]

Nicolás Fuchs is confirmed, he will be codriven by Ricardo Dasso. The car is under the Compañía General de Rally program. I don't know if this is a one off or if he will be part of other events.

Entry List updated



César Folledo is added with another VW Gol rising the count to four cars of this model.

[Damian Baldi]

Everything is ready for the first rally of 2020 and the 40th anniversary. Later today there will be an opening ceremony at the Berta's "fortress" with many retired drivers and codrivers, some local classic cars will be on display as the Mitsubishi Lancer EVO VI of Grabriel Pozzo, the Lancia Integrale of the always remembered Jorge Recalde (shared by his foundation) and two Renault 18.





Another news is the confirmation of the Maxi Rally Light class. Previously this class allowed the original Maxi Rally cars fitted with the 2.4 Honda atmospheric engine developed by Berta (the rest of the car is exactly as the MR Turbo). The new Light class, will include those cars and the new cars that are basically a derated MR Turbo, with the same turbo engine with a 32mm restrictor and an H pattern gearbox build locally to save costs, instead the secuencial 6 speed.

This new class has born with the idea to offer an intermediate step between the FWD classes and the MR Turbo cars, and as a replacement of the N4 cars that are basically extint. The "Senior" drivers will find in these cars a tool to keep driving at an accesible price.


This is the detail of the classes

• FIA R5
• RC2 - Maxi Rally Turbo - R4
• RC2 Copa Pirelli - Maxi Rally Turbo (32mm) / Maxi Rally Atmospheric
• RC2N (N4)
• RC3 – Junior
• RC5
• Copa Senior - Drivers older than 55 (all classes)



EDIT: Video of the atmosphere pre shakedown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2SOk7_8rAk


.

[Damian Baldi]

First loop of the day has ended. It was very closed on the lead positions until the last Special when some of the faster drivers had mechanical problems or got stuck in a sea of mud near the end of the last Special.

The start of the race last night in middle of the city was very difficult because visibility problems with dust in suspension. It was a bit unfair for some drivers.

Some drivers had his first contact their cars right on the shakedown, without any previous test, and that made them to be slow on the first loop. Scuncio with the Hyundai won the Special last night and the first stage today, but then it suffered problems with the anti lag system.


Results after the end of the first loop.



All the stages results and live timing here
https://rallyargentino.com/tiempos20...era01/MENU.HTM

Short video of the shakedown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EVQhk2_nBg

Moment when the champion Baldoni loses the lead when hits a stone and damage a wheel and suspension.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1233802608357363717

[Damian Baldi]

First half of day two, Villagra gained some seconds on the lead to D'Agostini. Scuncio with the R5 is cutting the gap to the lead, but he lost too much time yesterday as many other drivers that usually fight for the lead (Ligato, Baldoni, Padilla).

Winners of each stage


Stage 10 and general clasification



Video of summary day one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3HmooGo-2I


A video from a spectator shows all the cars passing at the same place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEfjHwnBeqU

[Damian Baldi]

Εnd of "Rally de Toledo". Federico Villagra won by 10 seconds over Augusto D'Agostini after 1:17:09 hs of competition. The rally was very closed until midday saturday when some drivers had problems with their cars or suffered damage. D'Agostini was the leader at the end of P.E.5 but he lost a bit of time on the last two timed sectors. This battle made the compettion entertaining, but it could has been a lot better.

Good start of the season for Baratec Team with the VW Polo cars of D'Agostini and Padilla showing their speed and wining P.E. 5, 11 and 12. Padilla made a mistake on saturday that have left his car at the side of the road and left him very far from the leaders when he rejoined on sunday.

Unusual problems for all Chevrolet cars of the Tango Team. Ligato suffered with a misfire at low RPM all the weekend and a central differetial's problem after the end of the first loop on saturday than couldn't be solved until the end of the day.

Miguel Baldoni was leading the rally at P.E. 2 and 3 but then he strongly hit a stone getting damage on the right front suspension and axle. The car was repaired in few minutes but later suffered of engine high temp until the end of saturday. He was fast again on sunday and recovered until get the 3rd place overall.

David Nalbandian had a weekend to forget with several transmision problems.

Martín Scuncio with the Hyundai R5 won P.E. 1, 8, 10 and 13 when the car was in good shape, but he need to improve his driving with this car. He suffered a 1 minute penalty for jumping a chicane, however he already had a 50 seconds defficit from the lead after the problems of saturday. The MR cars were slower than him but less than expected. It will be different on the mountains.

Good performance from newcomers or those whom jumped into the Maxi Rally class. Zeballos did it well, now with his car stays in Argentina instead comming directly from Uruguay for every race. He lost time both times at the same P.E. Nadia Cutro received a borrowed VW Gol MR on friday, so she took first stages to learn the car and the class. At some videos could be seen that she was braking too early. She didn't finished the race, abbandoning it in mid sunday. Leandro Bonnin went up to 3rd place with his Citröen DS3 by the end of saturday but then he had problems with the brakes. Gastón Pasten with a VW Polo MR Light and Lucas Machado with a Peugeot 208 MR Light were sometimes as fast as the MR Turbo. The tall Federico Cadamuro making his come back to the National rally did it very well, but he said that he still feels he have more to give. Folledo made half of the rally with only RWD on this VW Gol MR. Menendez who overturned his car on friday shakedown, had a very good speed at some stages showing that the VW Gol stil have potential if it keeps updated.

It looks like lot of drivers and teams had works undone in the pre season. Let's see how they arrive to the next rally in april.


Clasificación Final Rally de Toledo 2020

1-Federico Villagra - Virginia Klus (Ford Fiesta - MR) 1:17:09.8
2-Augusto D´Agostini - Juan Pablo Carrera (VW Polo - MR) +10.0
3-Miguel Baldoni - Gustavo Franchello (Chevrolet Agile - MR) +1:21.8
4-Marcos Ligato - Rubén García (Chevrolet Agile - MR) +1:25.9
5-Rodrigo Zeballos - Luis Allende (Peugeot 208 - MR) +1:44.0
6-Martín Scuncio - Sebastián Vera (Hyundai i20 R5) +2:02.0

Podium



Video review of day 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLMIQxLMkgQ

EDIT: video link changed

[Damian Baldi]

Some different news.

- Next rally date and place is now known. It will take place at Tucuman "Tafí del Valle" on april 3 to 5.

- Martín Scuncio will be back with his Hyundai i20 R5. His idea is to do this race and the WRC race. Gabriel Pozzo from GP Motorsport is involved to run this project beside Point Cola Racing.

- Nadia Cutro's Toyota Yaris is taking form.

[Damian Baldi]

This is a car I didn't knew. It's the Toyota Etios Maxi Rally of Federico Devoto, it have the atmospheric engine version. It was build in a hurry to replace a crashed car. For 2020 the car it's being converted to fit the turbo engine.

Birth of the car.



Ready to race






In the proccess of the convertion




a short video of a pass of the Etios from Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/FedeDevotoR...547703812/?t=2

[Damian Baldi]

Some time ago I was talking about Nadia Cutro doing her first steps on a Maxi Rally, BUT I forgot his short time on the Fiat team back in 2012. All the adventure of Fiat with the Palio cars went bad, with lack of good results (I think they won a single rally thanks to Gabriel Pozzo) and the amount of accidents and destroyed cars. Maybe the shape of the body or the wheelbase resulted in an unbalanced car, and at the end the project went to a close. Some of the Palios still race on rallycross events or on the regional Rallies.

About Nadia Cutro with the Palio, she used to drive with his sister as codriver while learning how to drive the 4WD car. In middle of the season at the San Luis Rally, they got blind in middle of a jump and had a huge crash that ended with the Cutro sisters adventure on a Maxi Rally.









About Fiat, I hope they return soon as an official team with the new Argo.