IRC: Turkey to host 'true start'.

The Rally Turkey, the second round of the 2007 Intercontinental Rally Challenge, will mark the 'true start' to the series this coming weekend after March's official curtain-raiser in Kenya attracted few championship contestants.

In contrast, all the favourites will be present this weekend on the shores of the Bosporus near Istanbul including the factory Fiat Grande Punto S2000s, the Peugeot Spain-entered Peugeot 207 S2000s and an official Citroen C2 S1600.

After its visit to Africa, the Intercontinental Rally Challenge will straddle two continents in one event this weekend as the series moves on to Rally Turkey which is this year based closer to Istanbul.

The second round of the 2007 IRC is none other than the Fiat Rally which has been a European Championship qualifier for many years. The route of this weekend's event will take crews from Istanbul's Sultanahmet Square to the shores of the Black Sea via a programme of 19 stages, all on gravel, with the exception of the two asphalt super-specials.

The switch to dirt marks a significant shift for the Fiat Rally which has been an all-asphalt affair for the past 12 years. Meanwhile, the route will be entirely new for the majority of runners, including for former winner Simon Jean-Joseph, who was first in 2004 and 2005.

"The event itself is totally new and seems to be pretty open," he stated. "We have heard that the stages are reasonably fast, and that suits me fine.

"I was able to see during our gravel testing - where we worked essentially on the suspension - that the Citroen C2 has tremendous potential. The early days of our relationship with Citro?n's technical staff have been very constructive. The C2 has impressive traction and soaks up the terrain with remarkable ease, which is surprising for a car of its size.

"We are fully aware though that we will have our work cut out against all the four-wheel drive runners but my objective will be to show how quick the C2 is on the loose and to score as many points as possible in both championships. It's an exciting challenge and I can't wait to get started."

"This is something of a step into the unknown for us," added BFGoodrich's Rallies programme manager Matthieu Bonardel. "This event is very different to the Rally Turkey that counted towards the WRC recently and which was based near Antalya.

"The time of year has changed, so have the stages and the tyres are also different from those seen in the WRC since they come from the standard BFGoodrich rally catalogue. That said, their strength and competitiveness were clearly apparent on the Safari Rally on Navarra's Fiat Abarth and we are hoping for a top result again this weekend."

While March's Nairobi-based Safari Rally, which opened this year's IRC hostilities, attracted very few IRC contestants (only the two factory BFGoodrich-equipped Fiats made the long haul trip), the Rally Turkey marks the true start to the series with a line-up that features two works Fiats (Andrea Navarra and Anton Alen), two Peugeot S2000s (E Garcia Ojeda and Nicolas Vouilloz), plus a Citro?n C2 S1600 (Simon Jean-Joseph).

The three-time WRC Manufacturers' title winner recently announced its registration for the series in which it joins Fiat-Abarth, Mitsubishi and Peugeot in the Manufacturers' category.

The key entries are as follows:

#1 Andrea Navarra Fiat Abarth Grande Punto S2000
#2 Renato Travaglia Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX
#3 Dimitar Iliev Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX
#4 Volkan Isik Fiat Grande Punto S2000
#5 Simon Jean-Joseph Citro?n C2 S1600
#6 Anton Alen Fiat Abarth Grande Punto S2000
#7 Krum Donchev Subaru Impreza
#8 Michal Solowow Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX
#9 Ercan Kazaz Subaru Impreza
#10 Nicolas Vouilloz Peugeot 207 S2000
#12 E. Garcia Ojeda Peugeot 207 S2000