The Schio-based team wraps up a weekend full of incidents, encouraging signs and confirmations across Tuscany, Croatia and Maremma. From Louis Constant’s second place overall to the solid performances delivered by Hoelbling, Taddei and Griso, all the way to Pierangelo Villa’s class win, the final balance speaks of a team that is alive, combative and never willing to give in.
Some weekends leave behind far more than a bare result sheet can ever tell. The one tackled by MS Munaretto between the Rally della Val d’Orcia, the Croatia Rally and the Trofeo Maremma undoubtedly belongs in that category. In the middle of it all came a high-value overall podium, a class win, bitter retirements, unfortunate episodes and a long series of technical and sporting indications that leave the Schio-based outfit with a rich, intense and anything but ordinary balance.
The heart of the weekend was inevitably the Rally della Val d’Orcia, a tough, selective event, never easy to read and more than once capable of exposing both the strengths and the limits of the entire field. In that setting, MS Munaretto leaves Tuscany with strong feelings and with the awareness of having shown speed, character and reaction in several moments across the weekend.
The standout performer was Louis Constant, partnered by Maxime Martini, author of a performance of genuine substance that ended with second place overall and top honours among the Under 25s. It was a result of real weight, even more so considering that their rally was complicated by two punctures, suffered on SS9 and SS10. Despite everything, the young team representative managed to stay fully in the fight with clarity, speed and personality, producing a weekend worth far more than the final placing alone and one that confirms very real quality.
Far crueller, instead, was the fate that befell Benjamin Korhola and Kristian Temonen. Their rally went wrong immediately, with a run off the road on the opening special stage that extinguished from the outset any chance of building the weekend they had pictured beforehand. The most important aspect is of course the human one, with the crew unhurt, but it is inevitable that the episode also left its mark on morale, because it came at a moment when expectations and ambitions were very clear.
Among the most encouraging notes from Val d’Orcia was also the performance of Massimo Squarcialupi and Giovanni Squarcialupi. Although they were forced to stop on the very last special stage, their weekend showed clear growth compared to last year. The mileage gathered is beginning to pay off, confidence has increased and the rally was managed with consistency and convincing pace, to the point of moving ever more threateningly close to the top ten. The final retirement leaves a bitter taste, but it does not erase the good work built beforehand.
There were solid signs too from Luca Hoelbling and Federico Fiorini, who finished just outside the top ten, a result that carries real weight in a rally that proved difficult for everyone and one that helped reveal the true hierarchy, strengths and weak points within the field. Theirs was a concrete performance, built on rhythm and quality, in a context where it took very little to pay a heavy price.
The rally of Giovanni Ceccato and Enrico Bracchi had instead entered a phase of progressive growth, with improving feelings and an understanding that was taking shape stage after stage. Just when the event seemed to be moving into a more favourable phase for them, however, retirement arrived on SS6 for personal reasons, an episode that interrupted progress that deserved to be carried all the way to the finish.
Also worthy of mention was the performance of Alessandro Taddei and Andrea Gaspari, forced from the very start to live with a ten-minute time penalty for lateness, ballast that they carried throughout the entire rally. Despite that, the driver managed not to lose composure, maintaining clarity and pace all the way to an overall 12th place that gives proper value to his rally. In a complicated weekend, determination was rewarded.
There is also room for the performance of Michele Griso and Alex Guion, protagonists of a difficult rally but one interpreted with the right mentality. Without allowing the difficulties to bring them down, they kept pushing and stayed in the fight, making it all the way to the finish without mistakes and building, step by step, a recovery made of places gained and solid execution.
From Tuscany to the world stage, the move to the Croatia Rally presented a very different challenge for Williams Zanotto and Paolo Cargnelutti. Croatian asphalt, already demanding in its own right, raised the degree of difficulty even further, taking the competition to another level in both intensity and complexity. In that setting, the crew still managed to complete the rally without major issues, even if their weekend was marked by ups and downs, within a setting that remains highly prestigious and continues to carry significant weight in the team’s journey.
The broadest smiles, however, came from the Trofeo Maremma, where Pierangelo Villa, partnered by Michael Adam Berni, secured first in class with full-blooded enthusiasm, giving the team a tangible and well-earned reward. In a weekend scattered with episodes, the class win in Maremma also carried symbolic value, a reward for the tenacity and the ability of the group to be ready across very different fronts.
The final balance, then, is not one that stops at the numbers. MS Munaretto comes away from this weekend with an overall podium, a class win, several technical signs to take forward and confirmation that it has in its hands a structure capable of reacting, absorbing blows and remaining competitive even when a weekend turns awkward. It is on days like these that the true weight of a team is measured. And once again, the Schio-based outfit showed that it has plenty of it.
