Lancia pair Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin will both compete in next month’s Italian Gravel Championship opener as they develop the Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale on gravel.
The new car made its competitive debut at last month’s Monte Carlo Rally, and while Rossel and Gryazin won eight of the 17 stages between them, neither finished inside the top-five as they were caught out in the conditions.
In what Lancia has described as “the next stage in the development program”, both drivers will take on Rally Città di Foligno (March 6/7) to “continue refining the car’s performance on gravel and to further strengthen the collaboration between the team and its drivers in real rally conditions, looking ahead to upcoming WRC2 challenges on this surface”.
Rossel told DirtFish after the Monte Carlo Rally that he believes the car is good enough to fight everywhere.
“Yes, I think we can fight on every rally,” he said. “For sure it’s the first rally, nothing special, I think we proved the car was fast, and it is fast, and for sure the plan is that it improved a lot. But for me it’s a clean car, for sure this weekend the problem is not the car.”
Lancia’s next WRC2 event is expected to be Croatia Rally (April 9-12).
