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Rossi almost certain to do Rally GB |
Valentino Rossi is looking almost certain to compete on the Rally GB, the final round in the 2007 FIA World Rally Championship, which runs from November 30 to December 2.
Speculation about the MotoGP star doing the event in Wales started to intensify last month and the Subaru World Rally Team confirmed to
Crash.net then that they were in the 'early stages' of discussions with the Italian.
Rossi has been planning to do this year's Rally GB for over 12 months and following his second outing in the WRC on the Rally New Zealand in November 2006, he confirmed as much, after bringing his Impreza WRC car home in eleventh place.
Rossi has now been reported as saying that a deal to use a Prodrive-run Subaru Impreza WRC car is '95 per cent' sorted, although with entries for the event closing next week, on Friday October 26, any deal will need to be finalised soon.
"It is 95 per cent certain I will participate on the Wales Rally GB," Valentino told
rallye-magazin.de. "However we do not have the budget completely together yet. We would like to drive with Michelin tyres. We hope to do some tests beforehand too."
Rumours meanwhile continue to suggest that Valentino might make a switch to rallying post-2009 when his current deal with Yamaha expires. Fiat, which currently sponsors the Yamaha team, are understood to be keen to get him to drive the Punto Super 2000.
However, Rossi has recently hinted that he may change teams post 2008, should his Yamaha not improve, suggesting that any four-wheel switch is still some way off.
"I know that Fiat wants to return to the WRC with the Punto S2000 turbo, but I am not part of that programme," Rossi was quoted as saying in the same report.
