The
off-season of the FIA World Rallycross Championship is proving
that no mistakes should be made in the drivers selection by the
teams, and World RX Team Austria replaces completely its full
season lineup ahead of the new season.
It
was announced this Wednesday (17) that the Russian driver Timur
Timerzyanov and the Latvian driver Janis Baumanis will be
the new pair of full time drivers for the Austrian squad, replacing
the team bosses Manfred Stohl and Max Pucher onboard a
pair of Ford Fiesta models.
Timerzyanov
is coming from a Ford drive for Olsbergs MSE, as he was the third
full time driver of the team, and his lack of regularity somehow was
along with the team, which made them lose the teams title crown to
the Team Peugeot-Hansen. His experience acquired with two European
Rallycross titles should be a benchmark and will help the team a
lot with their cars.
Baumanis
comes as the reigning Super 1600 title holder, but he isn't coming to
the big boys battle without experience, as between his title campaign
he contested some World RX rounds with Hansen Talent Development, a
junior team of Peugeot-Hansen, as well his single time drive with
World RX Team Austria last year at Rosario, Argentina. Baumanis gave
to the current world champion Petter Solberg a run for his money for
a couple of laps in the final, missing the podium by two seconds but
ending the event as the best rookie.
But
what about Pucher and Stohl? Stohl decided to step to a trackside
engineering role for the team, giving support in all of the team's
entries. Pucher will still drive in the other way, but his
participation will focus in all rounds of the Euro RX while the
participation in selected World RX rounds is in the cards for him.
Below
you can see a short video about the announcement of the 2016 plans:
PHOTO: World RX Team Austria
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