RALLY, STEADY, GO!
Ready to start: the pilots of the new Red Bull Skoda Team have been announced. And the trio is set to shake up the Rally Championship 2006 with a promising combination of experience and youthful power.

Baumschlager Rallye Racing (BRR) is the name of the new Red Bull Skoda Team that will be taking on the field of the Rally WC 2006. Gilles Panizzi, Mattias Ekström and Andreas Aigner are the names of the drivers, meaning the private BRR team will be represented at the Rally WC 2006 with a promising mixture of experienced star pilots and powerful youngsters.

Experience is what the 40-year-old Frenchman Gilles Panizzi has in spades. Panizzi was for years unbeatable on asphalt (earning him the nickname “Tarmac Expert” in racing circles). As part of BRR, he will compete in the WC races in Monte Carlo (January 20-22nd), Spain and Corsica, joined by his brother Herve as co-pilot.


It has also been announced that for the second WC race in Sweden, “local hero” Mattias Ekström will be taking the wheel. At 28, the Swede has already had a remarkable amount of experience with winning: he captured the DTM in 2004 and finished second behind Gary Paffet in 2005. Ekström, who has long displayed ambitions to drift from the asphalt, was the Group N winner at the Sweden rally.




The third man, and the rookie of the team, is Austrian rally talent and Red Bull Rallye Junior Andreas Aigner. The 21-year-old was discovered two years ago. This year, he’s already made a name for himself at several Rally WC races in Group N. “Andreas, in particular, will profit from the experience of the two older pilots and learn a great deal,” says team coach Raimund Baumschlager.

The three drivers will be piloting two Skoda Fabia WRCs. Skoda, no longer a development team in the 2006 Rally WC, is also on board with BRR as a sponsor. Baumschlager is promising ideal conditions for all three pilots in all other areas as well: “60% of our support team will consist of mechanics, and 40% of personnel from our rally team, who have already proved themselves. That’s a good mix, especially since everyone will be highly motivated.”

The two Fabias will compete in the “Manufacturer 2” category, which applies to all teams that race according to the current WRC technical standards. In the “Manufacturer 1” category, the use of further technological developments is allowed.