A great “first” for Giò Dipalma: the Lakes Rally is all his

Do you remember the 2007 Tre Valli Varesine, with its “downpour”? Well, the 2018 Lakes’ Rally will probably go down in history in the same way, because of the numerous withdrawals that affected the most eagerly awaited race (a motor race, on this occasion) of the season. However, the race had a clear and deserving winner: Giò Dipalma. The 28-year-old from Malnate is someone who has petrol in his blood. When he was very young, he won a motocross flag …, in Varese, he had the very first success of his career, driving his Skoda Fabia R5, Number 11 (his co-driver was the experienced “Cobra”, from Casciago) to the highest levels, despite the snow, ice, fog and rain.

 

Thus, Dipalma beat the bad weather, which had pummelled the entire day of Saturday, with all possible adverse conditions (except hail); the snow that had started to cover the Cuvignone Pass at dawn, forced the organisation to cancel two stages (out of three) of the main trial. And the Alpe-Valganna and Sette Termini also created problems, with some serious accidents in the morning (the overturning of Simone Miele and Barsanofio Re), which forced many cars to transfer, or even change roads. And at a certain point, many decided to give up, for various technical problems (including Porro, Pensotti and Toia), or to avoid worse problems with the cars.

 

The only person who could have threatened Dipalma in the afternoon was Andrea Crugnola, but he soon gave up, because of a fault with the transmission on his Ford R5; so, it was soon apparent what a great opportunity Dipalma had been given. Behind the Skoda, Number 11, there were just two experienced drivers, Beppe Freguglia (Fiesta WRC, with Lisa Bollito) and Mauro Miele (the same car, with Mauro Beltrame), who brought his family onto the podium after the withdrawal by his son Simone, who had won the show trial on Friday, but who was immediately out of the game on Saturday. The super-veteran kept both Roncoroni and Bertolotti behind him: the former tried to make a super come back, at the last Cuvignone, but ended up third, the latter (making his debut in Varese) demonstrated a certain consistency.

 

So, in the end, the “Lakes” was deprived of many favourites: there were only two WRCs at the finish (two out of seven), and many technical problems in a race that was already highly selective, that was made extremely complicated by the adverse conditions. A series of exits began with the show on Friday evening (the Bettole stands were brimming), when the mistake by Pedersoli led to his withdrawal. As a result, the drivers in the less powerful classes took advantage of the situation and rose to the top ten. This was the case of Andrea Spataro, sixth (ahead of Testa), in his Peugeot 208 R2B, with his co-driver D’Agostino (too bad about the puncture for De Tommaso, who was battling him in the class), Maran, Tondina and Zorra, who got in behind the eagerly awaited Ferrarotti, first in an R3, which little by little lost the other great protagonists (Bosetti, Marchetti and, above all, Daldini).

 

Before lifting the winner’s cup, Dipalma described his feelings and gave a comment (which we can all agree with) on how the “Lakes” had gone for him. “I’ve always been fast, but in the past I’ve made mistakes. This time, I demonstrated that I’ve become mature, because I didn’t make any mistakes, I drove safely, apart from the speed, despite very difficult conditions. Many made mistakes and I’m sorry for them; there was snow, mud and water, but I didn’t make any mistakes, and I got the result I wanted.”

Hats off to him: achieving certain times and certain leads means he drove a perfect race. He deserves his victory.