The prospects for Rallye Sanremo, round 10 of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge, are mouth-watering after entries for the Italian event peaked at more than 90 cars.
In addition to the Skoda Motorsport trio of Juho Hanninen, Jan Kopecky and Freddy Loix, Skoda UK Motorsport will enter a Fabia S2000 for Guy Wilks, while Skoda Italia will be represented by Marco Signor.
The Peugeot challenge will be led by defending IRC champion and last year’s Rallye Sanremo winner Kris Meeke. Italian ace Paolo Andreucci, runner-up to Hanninen on Rally d’Italia-Sardegna in June, and Frenchman Bryan Bouffier will also be at the wheel of a 207 S2000s as will Bruno Magalhaes, who returns to IRC action after skipping last month’s Barum Czech Rally Zlin.
Giandomenico Basso heads the Abarth line-up, which also includes four-time IRC event winner Luca Rossetti. PROTON will field Niall McShea in one of its Satria Neo S2000s and will reveal the identity of its second driver tomorrow (Friday).
Several M-Sport Ford Fiesta S2000s will also be in action with Andreas Mikkelsen and former IRC regular Andrea Navarra among those driving the new-for-2010 cars.