• In the Rallye du Var, in France, the Milano Racing team's two French drivers, Raphael Astier (FIA R-GT Cup champion) and Nicolas Ciamin will be fighting it out.
  
• In Spain, the winners of the 2-Wheel Drive Trophy in the Spanish Tarmac Rally Championship, Alberto Monarri and Rodrigo Sanjuán, celebrate by competing in the Rally Comunidad de Madrid.
  

Five Abarth 124 rally cars will be taking racing in the French and Spanish championships this weekend. In the Rallye du Var in France, the Milano Racing team will be lining up three cars, with a fourth entered by the Garage Mischler Team.
Competing in the classic French race will be the FIA R-GT Cup world champion, French driver Raphael Astier, paired with Frédéric Vauclare, in an event where he will face rivalry from his young fellow-countryman and team-mate Nicolas Ciamin, accompanied by Antony Villanova (FRA). Ciamin has been this season's major revelation, since in the highly competitive French championship he has recorded the best time overall in the special stages of several events, beating off official four-wheel drive cars in the higher-performance R5 class.
The Milano Racing team's third car is driven by Belgians Kurt Vanderspinnen and Bijorn Vanoverschelde, while the French pair Jerome Chavanne and Julien Schillaci will be competing for the Garage Mischler team.
Before the race weekend, as part of the Abarth 124 rally Selenia International Challenge Raphael Astier, winner of the FIA R-GT Cup, will receive a prize in the form of the new Abarth 124 rally in which he will compete in the season-ending race. The Rallye du Var is the last race in the French Rally Championship and comprises 3 stages. The first stage starts from Saint Maxime at 1 pm on Friday 23 November and ends at 7.05 pm on the same day; on Saturday, the second stage starts at 6.50 am and finishes at 4.45 pm, while Sunday's third and final stage starts at 5.50 am with the final finish at 9.20 am. In total, competitors will tackle an all-tarmac course of 629 km, with 192 km consisting of 14 special time-trial stages.
The same weekend also sees the closing event of the Spanish Tarmac Rally Championship, in which Spanish drivers Alberto Monarri and Rodrigo Sanjuàn have already achieved a splendid victory in the 2-Wheel Drive Cup in the SMC Junior Motorsport Team's Abarth 124 rally. For them, the Rally Comunidad de Madrid will serve as a lap of honour after a season in which they have returned brilliant performances with impressive overall standings, such as fourth place overall in the rally de Ourense, fifth in the Sierra Morena and sixth in the Villa de Adeje. The race starts from the Jarama circuit, a few kilometres outside Madrid, at 11.30 am on Friday 23 November and ends at 4.36 pm on the following day. The course is 696 km long, with 9 special stages totalling 143 km.
Turn, 22 November 2018