Rally Diary

2010-01-22T15:30:00.004+01:00

The Red Bull Rally Team will enter a Swedish duo in 2010 – and now a German duo as well.
Following Sandell in the S-WRC: Hermann Gassner jun. / Katharina Wüstenhagen will also compete for Red Bull and BRR in the World Rally Championship, Group N.

Gassner jun./Wüstenhagen (GER) will start in five WRC events – in a Mitsubishi EVO IX.
The Red Bull Rally Team will enter the 2010 World Rally Championship with two cars.
Beside Patrik Sandell (SWE)/Emil Axelsson (SWE), Skoda Fabia Super 2000, S-WRC, BRR team boss Raimund Baumschlager will enter another crew in the 2010 World Rally Championship.

The 2009 German rally champions Hermann Gassner jun./Katharina Wüstenhagen will take the start in five WRC events this coming season – in a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX.
At just 21 years of age, Hermann Gassner the Younger is ranked among the great talents and hopefuls in German rallying.In 2009 Gassner jun./Wüstenhagen took the German title with four wins and also caught everyone’s attention at the WRC event in Wales with some quick times.
The two caused a great stir in 2008 – by winning the Group N category of the German WRC round.

For the first time in his active career of four years, five WRC rounds await the young Bavarian – the right step at the right time in a professional environment.
At a minimum, the events in Sweden, Portugal, Germany, France and England are on this season’s agenda. The BRR team will run its tried and tested Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IX.
Hermann Gassner jun. is to be developed further during his 2010 campaign and continuously led up towards the top class.

Baumschlager: “It’s certainly a very promising task to be looking after one of the greatest talents in German rallying and help him in his international development.
Hermann has the appropriate speed, technical understanding and is already very serene despite his youth.”

Hermann Gassner jun.: “It’s certainly a great pleasure and honour for me to be able to contest a WRC programme in 2010 in a professional environment. It’s a source of pride for me, and I’ll try everything possible to give back the confidence through appropriate performances.”

Media: RedBull

Mitropa-Cup Champion!

2009-09-28T16:34:00.001+02:00

After a hard rally in Bassano, Italy, we finally won the Mitropa Rally Cup. It was our first start in the new Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, because our black-yellow Evo IX is already well prepared for the RACC Rally in Catalunya.
The Rally Citta di Bassano startet very well for us. We drove two Group N stage besttimes. After 8 of 12 SSs we were seventh overall and 2nd in the class. But then the organiser decided to stopped the rallye. The problem was that there were to many spectators on the stages.
With place two in the Mitropa-Cup we managed to get this championsship, but there is no time for party. We are already in Salou, Spain, where on Tuesday the recce for the spanish WRC event starts.

Greetings

Hermann & Kathi

Leader of German Rally Championsship!

2009-09-14T08:59:00.006+02:00

It was a very exciting week!
On Wednesday my Sponsor Kathrein confirmed the support for WRC so I can take part on the second last WRC-Event in Spain.
With this good news we did the recce of the 6th round of German Rally Championsship, the ADAC Saarland-Rallye. The special stages were a bit different from last year and sometimes really difficult. After the first day with two super special stages we led with just 0.4 seconds.
The "real" stages on Saturday where fast and slippery because of the dirty roads. We drove some besttimes and led on midday with 15 seconds. On the liaison it smelled like gearbox oil and then we could see that the Centerdifferential was broken. The mechanics changed it, but they needed two minutes more than allowed for the reparation. So we got a penalty of 20 seconds. Two stages later we were 2nd with 0,1 second behind the leader, Sandro Wallenwein, but the car was OK. On the last stages we pushed really hard and finally we won the rally.
Now we are leading the championsship with one point and there is just one rally left. The Lausitz rally is on gravel surface so I think we have a good chance for the fight for the title.
But now I'm concentrating on Rally Catalunya and Rally Bassano.

Greetings,

Hermann

Rally Alpi Orientali

2009-09-01T08:58:00.004+02:00

After one week in Italy we are back again. Unfortunately we had no internet connection in our hotel, so we couldn't inform you during the rally.
The recce was ok, but difficult. In Italy it isn't allowed to do recce during the "siesta" (12 a.m. - 2 p.m.). So we had a relaxing lunch. The stages were really tricky, narrow and no straight was longer then 100 meter. Also it was difficult to know which of the different tarmac sorts have grip. But all in all I was happy with my pace notes after the two days of recce.
On thursday we did the shakedown, which had a really rough tarmac. So the grip was amazing, but the stage was not really similar the the real stages. We decided to leave the shakedown after three runs. The setup was ok.
Friday, the first rally day, was completely dry. After a slower start we went a bit faster and finished without problems on place 16 overall and place 4 in the inofficial "Evo-League". On this kind of stages you have absolutely no chance with a normal group N- car against the lighter S2000 cars and there were 15 S2000 cars.
On saturday the weather was very unsettled. So we decided to use intermed tires which was safer. On the first three stages we managed to get closer to the italien guys, also we drove a stage besttime (of corse from all Evo's not overall). But on the last loop we took the wrong tires. Again intermeds, but it was dry. We lost nearly a minute, but we were happy to reach the finish.
Place 12 overall, place 4 in the "Evo-League" and winner of the Mitropa Rally Cup was a good end of a nice week in Italy.
Thanks a lot to Pirelli and Mario Isola for the help and information about the tires and also to our service-crew, who did a great job.

Greetings,
Hermann

Mexico-Car is back

2009-08-18T12:16:00.005+02:00

Our red-yellow Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX is back in Germany. After a long journey across the sea and through Europe we were a bit afraid what we will see inside the container. Luckily everything is ok and the car's engine started immediately.

We are currently in the preparations for Rally Alpi di Orientali. Everything goes well so we are quite sanguine that we will have a good rally.

Greetings
Hermann

Preparations for Alpi Rally

2009-08-06T16:26:00.006+02:00

I'm currently enjoying the rally free time. I meet my friends quite often. That is good for coming down from the the rally stress.
On the other hand I want to be well prepared for my next rally, the "Rally del Friuli e Alpi Orientali", which will take part end of August. The special stages are located near Udine. In this time of the year it is usually really hot in Italy so I want to be completly fit. At the moment I'm watching the onboard videos from last year. I also go to our lakes for a swim every day. Next week I will join a sauna to get used to the heat in the car. I hope with this preparations we'll have a nice week in Italy.

We try to keep you informed during the rally.

Greetings from Germany
Hermann

Free weekend

2009-07-29T23:53:00.004+02:00

A rally-free weekend is waiting for us. Time to relax and meeting friends. We wish you also a nice weekend and good luck to all competing in Rally Finland, Rali Vinho da Madeira and Wartburg Rallye.

All the best
Hermann and Kathi

Bag is back!

2009-07-29T12:44:00.002+02:00

Unbelievable!! Today we got our lugagge and everything seems to be there. Three weeks we waited for that bag. Now everthing is back again. Yeephy