After being chosen by a jury made up of representatives of the Italian media to drive the BFGoodrich-liveried Peugeot 207 S2000 this weekend, Luca Cantamessa started the event cautiously with a view to steering clear of this legendary event's notorious pitfalls, but sufficiently quickly to figure around 10^th place which was no mean achievement given the quality of the entry, with no fewer than 24 S2000 cars at the start.

 

The Italian driver kicked off the evening with the 13^th fastest time on SS1 before gradually upping his pace to end the leg in 13^th spot, despite taking a 30-second penalty for late arrival at the service park following an exhaust change. But for that, he would have been overnight eighth.

 

Luca Cantamessa and his co-driver Piercarlo Capolongo are less than 25 seconds behind former WRC works driver François Duval (Abarth/BFGoodrich), and around 10 seconds behind the factory Skoda/BFGoodrich driver Juho Hanninen.

 

The Italian crew's objective now is to profit from tomorrow's menu of 116km of competitive action – including the classic Monte Ceppo and Colle Oggia stages – to finish inside the top-10.