Rallye Tour de Corse: four teams on board Abarth 124 rally cars ready at the off in the historic Rallye

• Abarth #124rally Selenia International Challenge, two Italian (Nucita - Vozzo and Modanesi - Menchini) and two French (Astier - Vauclaire and Gache - Rivière) teams compete in the Corsican weekend.
• With a course 1,120 km long and 12 special stages, the race starts on Friday 6 and ends on Sunday 8 April.
• The race is valid for the World #rally Championship and FIA R-GT Cup.

The #abarth 124 Selenia International Challenge comes to a top international event, as next weekend four teams race #abarth #124rally cars in the #rally Tour de Corse, valid for the World #rally Championship and FIA R-GT Cup.

The brand is making an impressive showing at the international championship, with #abarth #124rally cars amongst the protagonists in their class, with two Italian and two French drivers. The Bernini #rally team's cars will be in the hands of Sicilian Andrea Nucita, with Marco Vozzo - a top performer at the Rallye de Montecarlo, when he obtained an outstanding 4th time overall in the race's toughest stage - the very young Andrea Modanesi, with Marco Menchini - winner of the Under 23 section of the 2017 #abarth #124rally Selenia Trophy - and Frenchman Philippe Gache, with Nicolas Riviére, while the Milano #racing Team car will be driven by talented young Frenchman Raphael Astier, with Frederic Vauclaire, in his first outing in the #abarth spider.

Andrea Nucita is very excited about his prospects "The route is fantastic. It's very demanding but well suited to the #abarth #124rally: we've done some specific trials and we're confident we can do well."

Andrea Modanesi is more cautious. "It will be an important race for me, above all as a chance to gain experience. I'm counting on the 124 rally's reliability."

Everything is new for Raphael Astier, one of France's most hotly tipped young drivers. "It's a completely new experience for me in a rear-wheel drive car in a very difficult race."

Philippe Gache sees this as a prestige opportunity. "I know the car well, having driven it in last year's Rallye di Sanremo, and I've prepared well for the event, which has always had a special appeal for me."

The Rallye Tour de Corse is one of the toughest, most demanding in the World #rally Championship, on a winding, difficult course made even more challenging by the particularly long special stages. The race starts from Bastia at 8 am on Friday 6 April and consists of three main stages over a total of 1120 km, 333 of them time trials spread across 12 special stages. The longest of these is Vero-Sarrola-Carcopino, scheduled for Sunday 8 April, which is more than 55 km long; the race ends in Ajaccio at 3 pm on the same day.

Abarth has won two editions of the Tour de Corse in the past with the la Fiat 131 #abarth #rally, in 1977 and 1978, with Bernard Darniche at the wheel on both occasions.

In the first two races of the 2018 season, the #abarth #124rally has already recorded two wins in the R-GT class in the #rally Brasov, in Romania, with the Bernini #rally team #abarth #124rally driven by Tincescu, and the #rally Il Ciocco in Italy with Cristopher Lucchesi at the wheel, and second places in Belgium in the Rallye Spa-Francorchamps with Cédric De Cecco, in France in the Rallye du Touquet with Nicolas Ciamin, and in the Czech Republic in the Valasska #rally with Martin Rada.