The start of Rally del Ciocco's 31st edition will be given this Friday, also marking the beginning of the 2008 Italian Rally Championship. Official Abarth Team driver Renato Travaglia and co-driver Lorenzo Granai will be running the opening round aboard a Fiat Grande Punto Super 2000 bearing the coveted No. 1.

"The 'Ciocco' is a great classic of the Italian Rally Championship," stated Travaglia. "It's an asphalt rally where the race conditions should be very slippery. In fact, at this time of the year, weather conditions are often unpredictable."

The Italian will also be facing somewhat unpredictable conditions at the controls of his car : "We did not have the opportunity to run tests on these types of stages so we don't know what to expect this week-end. We will therefore have to wait for the shakedown to judge the handling of our new car, and at that point we will validate our set-up for the race."

If the rally itself is a challenge, the competition racing across the same roads should also share that quality, according to Travaglia.

"We will be confronted with formidable adversaries this week-end, amongst them Rossetti and Peugeot, the Subaru drivers, but also Mitsubishi with Andreucci," he considered. "We remain confident since we know Abarth will put all the necessary means at our disposal in order to obtain the best possible result."

Having said that, Renato Travaglia nonetheless added: "Our main adversary remains Paolo Andreucci above all. The Mitsubishi driver is playing at home and consequently, he knows every metre of the route. Despite that, we will fight, as we expect to mark precious championship points starting this week-end!"