At the beginning of December after a three-month break from racing it’s going to start getting hectic for Andreas Aigner again. The Welsh hills are calling with the season’s finals. In part two of our interview the Austrian talks about rhythm, rotation and an old man.
What did you do during the three-month time-out between New Zealand and Wales? How do you spend such a long break?
I spent the time between New Zealand and Wales working, doing stamina training and preparing for the Wales Rally. The transport back from New Zealand took six weeks; after that we had to spend several days sprucing the car up again. In preparation for Wales we also did a comprehensive test in order to get back into the racing rhythm once more.
... how quickly can you get back into that rhythm?
It takes one or two drives at racing speed to get back into the driver/co-driver swing of things again.
Your team director Raimund Baumschlager recently celebrated his sixth Austrian championship title in a row – the seventh in total. What do you have to say to that?
The old man is still really fast, and he still hasn’t had enough by a long way. The competition at a national level is unbelievably high, which makes it even more remarkable that he was able to win the championship so early on. He fought well the whole season. Now he’s only missing five national championships to equalize Franz Wittmann’s record.
Raimund also recently did the first tests with ‘No. 10’ – the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X. Results?
You can’t really glean much from these first tests because the car isn’t completely developed yet. For instance it didn’t have engine power management. The biggest problem compared to the Super 2000 cars is probably going to be weight again. Because the Evo X is still heavier than No. 9.
FIA has really turned the WRC concept on its head for 2009/2010. Only 12 rallies, changing them yearly, above all to keep the costs for the teams down. Is this the right thing to do?
From the FIA point of view they’re doing the right thing in any case, at least when it comes to reducing the number of rallies and thus costs. But I think that the classics like Rally Monte Carlo, the Finland Rally or also the Acropolis should be held every year. These classics are simply cult-like and should be included in every Rally World Championship. From my point of view the best solution would be to fix six to eight rallies in the calendar every year and rotate the rest.
Andreas Aigner
Andreas Aigner
Andreas Aigner
