Also at the Red Bull Ring

Why Neubauer is looking forward to a “home rally”

Hermann Neubauer is looking forward to seeing many familiar faces along the route in the Murtal.

(Bild: Martin Kovács)

The fourth round of the national rally championship is special for Hermann Neubauer because it is the closest to his home. The Murtal Rally is celebrating its comeback after 13 years. There are even stages at the Red Bull Ring.

A rally is not possible in his home country. Hermann Neubauer is therefore all the more pleased about the comeback of the Murtal Rally after 13 years. "It's the closest to my home. That's why a lot of people from Lungau are sure to be there. It's practically like a home rally for me." The Salzburg native has invited friends and acquaintances to drive to Styria. There, 13 special stages with a total length of 134 kilometers will take place on Friday and Saturday. The 68 participating teams will also make a detour to the Red Bull Ring, where Max Verstappen and his Formula 1 colleagues will be racing on the asphalt in two weeks' time.

"I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out. It will certainly be cool for the spectators," says Neubauer, who arrived on Wednesday afternoon. The 35-year-old Skoda driver was one of the few drivers to take part in the last edition in 2011. But that is not an advantage: "I looked at the stages on the Internet. Everything I know, we drive in the opposite direction from back then. But it was always cool and fast in the past - that normally suits me." Other drivers are the favorites anyway: national champion Simon Wagner (Skoda Fabia RS Rally2) is a hot tip, with January rally winner Michi Lengauer a big absentee. He was unable to raise the necessary budget - an entry in a Rally2 car devours around 30,000 euros per round.

Madness with the authorities over birds and noise
There was already a lot of excitement in the run-up to the event. Because before the local rally elite could set off in the Mur Valley, the organizers had to deal with the authorities. Potential nesting sites for the black-headed vulture, a possibly long-abandoned eagle's nest and creative noise measurement methods for the road-legal rally cars destroyed one special stage after another. "I've been organizing rallies for around 25 years, but I've never experienced anything like this. We had to reschedule everything in four days," says organizer Willi Stengg angrily. However, there have never been such problems at rallies in Upper Austria.

Jännerrallye organizer Georg Höfer explains: "The most important thing is to submit everything on time, we do this before the summer vacations!" This was probably also the problem in Styria. The district governor responsible, Nina Pölzl, is now defending herself, saying that the permit was only submitted at the beginning of March and with "incomplete and inadequate" documents.