Callum Devine believes he is capable of a strong result on this weekend’s Rally di Roma Capitale the opening round of the FIA European Rally Championship.
Motorsport Ireland Rally Academy driver Devine will be entering his first ever rally in Italy and admitted this weekend is set to be a a challenge for him in the ERC1 Junior class.
Devine is one of the 11 drivers that are on the ERC1 entry list and he will be going up against drivers including WRC regular Oliver Solberg as well as German pair Dominik Dinkel and Fabien Kreim.
“ERC1 Junior is our priority and we want to be in the mix. But there are a lot of quick drivers in ERC1 Juniors, and many of them have a chance for pushing for overall podium positions. We’ll just get as much experience as we can.” Devine said ahead of this weekend.
To prepare for a rally and a country which they haven’t competed at before, he and co-driver Brian Hoy have sat down and viewed videos from each stage with the footage being provided by rally organiser Motorsport Italia.
“I don’t know much about the rally apart from what I’ve found on the internet, I haven’t rallied in Italy at all so it will be a new experience. As far as I can see it’s quite smooth Tarmac, some broken Tarmac at times, which will probably suit us maybe a little bit more.” Devine explained on what he’s seen so far preparing for the event.
“The stage videos the rally has put up are a great help, some of the stages haven’t changed from last year and some have bits and pieces that are the same so it will be a hard challenge up against the boys that have been there before.”
The opening round of the 2020 FIA European Rally Championship takes place this weekend with daily updates here on The Checkered Flag.
