MATTIA 🇮🇹 JUMPS BUT WITHOUT JOY ON RALLY ITALIA 🇮🇹 SARDEGNA 🇮🇹 🌎
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MATTIA 🇮🇹 JUMPS BUT WITHOUT JOY ON RALLY ITALIA 🇮🇹 SARDEGNA 🇮🇹 🌎
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Mattia jumps but without joy on Rally Italia Sardegna
Alghero, June 18 2019
Mattia Vita – who is hoping to become the next Italian star to compete on the World Rally Championship – was set for a great result on the Rally Italia Sardegna, until he was ultimately forced to retire by an innocuous hill on Sunday.
But it wasn’t all bad news for Mattia. He was making his world championship debut as part of ACI Team Italia – showcasing the hottest young talents in the country – while competing on the Italian Junior Rally Championship, which carries a top prize of a budget towards next year’s Junior World Rally Championship.
For Rally Italia Sardegna, there were two scoring opportunities for Italian Junior Rally Championship contenders, with points being handed out at the end of Friday and the end of Sunday.
Despite a distracting steering problem on his Ford Fiesta R2T, caused by the many rocks that littered the route, and ambient temperatures in excess of 35 degrees centigrade (which equate to round 60 degrees or more inside the car) Mattia finished second on Friday, banking a useful haul of points that would elevate him to second in the championship.
When the rally resumed once more for the rest of the weekend, Mattia showed his pace once more by immediately taking the lead. But it all unravelled on the third stage of the day, Monte Lerno, which contains the famous Micky’s Jump: one of the most iconic jumps on the entire World Rally Championship. There, Mattia – co-driven as always by Massimiliano Bosi – unfortunately made a small mistake that would turn out to have bigger consequences.
“I just got the braking slightly wrong on the approach to the crest,” explained Mattia. “I was braking a bit too hard as we took off, so when we landed the nose of the car was pointing too down. This smashed the radiator and also detached the belt. It looked quite dramatic, but we stopped straight away, I put the belt back on, and I managed to plug the hole in the radiator with some chewing gum. We only lost just over three minutes and we were heading to service next, so I was reasonably confident that we still stood a chance.”
However, the impact had also caused the car to go into ‘safe mode’ – designed to limit engine damage by reducing power drastically, and this can only be reset by computer back in service.
“We carried on for a bit on safe mode, but then when we got to the first steep hill, there wasn’t actually enough power to get up the hill in safe mode: it felt like there was only 10 horsepower or something in there. Even though there were spectators trying to push us up the hill; we just couldn’t quite make it. This was an incredibly frustrating reason to retire, but it’s not all completely negative. We got a second place on Friday, showed our speed by leading on Saturday, and we’re still very well-placed in the championship. There’s everything to play for!”
With three rounds left to go, Mattia is currently third in the championship, within touching distance of second, and only 13 points away from the lead. He’ll be giving it everything to win on the next round in mid-July, Rally di Roma Capitale, which is also a round of the European Rally Championship.
ABOUT MATTIA
Mattia Vita began his motorsport career in karting with success in his native Italy and in Europe. He went on to race single-seaters in Formula 3 before making the switch to rallying, where both his father and mother have competed in the past. Last year, he finished just off the podium in his first international season: ERC Junior U27. For this year, he’s competing as part of ACI Team Italia in Italy and abroad, with the aim of contesting the Junior WRC in 2020.
For more information, please contact Anthony Peacock.
Photos: ACI Sport – Delegazione Regionale Sardegna
Mattia Vita
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20 June 2019