Red Bull Rally Team: Patrik Sandell Wales Rally GB Preview

-Production Car World Rally Championship 2009 – Round 8
-Rally of Great Britain 2009, October 22nd to 25th, 2009.

A fiery four-way dice for the PWRC runner-up spot – and Patrik Sandell is right in there!

Grand finale of the 2009 World Rally Championship season this coming weekend (October 22nd to 25th) in Wales!
A very special finale for Red Bull, which will see the great duel between Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen in the WRC – the two are currently separated by just a single point!

Portugal’s Armindo Araujo has already been crowned the new world champion in the PWRC – but the fans can be sure of a fiery four-way dice for second place. And here the Red Bull Rally Team is also involved:

Patrik Sandell/Emil Axelsson (SWE) – Skoda Fabia S2000 – are currently fourth overall in the PWRC standings with 28 points, but three points behind Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT/Subaru) and one behind Martin Prokop (CZE/Mitsubishi). Eyvind Brynildsen (NOR/Mitsubishi) at 22 points is also in with a small chance.

This spells another huge challenge for the Red Bull Rally Team and the Upper Austrian BRR crew at the end of the season.

Team boss Raimund Baumschlager: “Sure, we know what’s at stake. Our goal is to take the runner-up spot in the championship back home to Austria. We’ve fully focussed on this task over the the past few weeks. As far as the engineering is concerned, Patrik will again have a Skoda Fabia S2000 in top condition at his disposal. Now it’s his turn. I’m in very good spirits that we’ll reach our goals.”

In any case Patrik Sandell is well-prepared heading for Wales. He completed another successful test day with BRR in Austria this week, because weather conditions were identical to those expected in Wales: wet and very slippery stages!

Patrik Sandell: “The test day was very important for me. On the one hand because the surface conditions really were identical, on the other because every kilometre in the car is very important. I’m very much looking forward to the finale, and I hope that we’ll have a little bit of luck this time. Because after all we have been let down by it this year from time to time. In any case we’re going to attack from the very start, we want to claim the third win of the season for the Red Bull Rally Team. If we manage to do that the runner-up spot in the PWRC should also be a certainty.”

BRR will also enter a second car in Wales separate from the Red Bull programme: Paulo Nobre, vice-president of the FC Palmeiras, one of the most successful football clubs in Brazil, will be driving a Mitsubishi EVO X.

Overall PWRC standings (after seven of eight rounds):

P1 Armindo Araujo (POR)            42 points
P2 Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT)            31
P3 Martin Prokop (CZE)            29
P4 Patrik Sandell (SWE)            28
P5 Eyvind Brynildsen (NOR)            22

Photo: Red Bull