Super 1600 round-up Local hero wins

The continual threat came from Frenchman Cedric Robert, who fought hard to keep his Peugeot 206 in touch. Indeed, the gap between the pair stayed at less than half a minute until the penultimate stage of the rally, when Robert was caught out in a rainstorm and slid his car off the road. Dallavilla's winning margin was thus increased to more than four minutes, ahead of Ford Puma driver Francois Duval. Dallavilla finish 16th overall.

Larry Cols rounded off the podium in his Peugeot 206, while British Roger Clark Award winner Niall McShea made it four manufacturers in the top four places in his Citroen Saxo. Patrick Magaud survived a puncture, damaged steering and an accident to score two points in fifth, with Sergio Vallejo finishing sixth in his Fiat.

Dallavilla said: "It's great to win at home. I knew there was a good chance coming here because I know this part of the world very well and we had a good set-up for the car too. I've got good experience of this rally and that's pretty important in the Super 1600 section. It's impossible to say if we could have beaten Sebastien if he'd been in the Saxo as usual - all we could do was try to beat everyone in the category and we did that. We'll have to try to beat Seb when he comes back to the Super 1600 category in Corsica and Rally GB."

Dallavilla's victory means that while Loeb enjoyed his second-place finish in the overall classification, his FIA Super 1600 Cup points advantage has been slashed to just six points with two rounds remaining.

A Dallavilla Fiat 4h24m14.8s
F Duva Ford +4m27.3s
L Cols Peugeot +5m14.1s
N McShea Citroen +6m08.5s
P Magaud Ford +6m32.0s

FIA Super 1600 Cup (after 4 of 6 rounds):
Loeb 30, Dallavilla 24, Stenshorne & Cols 7, Basso & Fontana & Duval 6, Valimaki & Magaud 4, Robert & Cols & McShea 3, Chemin & Ceccato & Galanti 1.