Rustad to compete with Munnich in Germany WRX
Former BTCC Independents champion and WTCC driver Tommy Rustad will partner Rene Munnich in the Munnich Motorsport team at the penultimate round of the WRX in Germany next month.
FIA World Rallycross
The Estering event will be Rustad’s second drive for the squad. Last year he made a one-off appearance at the wheel of its Audi A3 in the Canadian round, and finished fourth, the team’s best finish in World RX until that point.
The Norwegian will race one of the squad’s 2016 Seat Ibiza Supercars in Germany, having sampled the car in France recently, the day after Latvian Reinis Nitiss drove it to fifth overall at the eighth round of the series at Loheac.
“I’m very happy to have been asked to do another race with the team. I’m jumping into it to try and do my best, to work as well as I can with the car," said Rustad.
"I don’t know yet if I need to change the car to suit my style, or if I need to change my style to suit the car. I’m just going to my best for the team and hopefully we can get a good result.
"I’m not really sure what I should expect, because it’s a new car. I did a race with them last year without any experience with them and we did very well. I tested for four laps at Loheac.
"The car was very easy to drive but for sure there has been a lot of development from the [2015] Audi to the Seat.”
Rustad returned to rallycross full-time in 2014, and won the European Rallycross Championship last year in a Volkswagen Polo Supercar.
This season he has been campaigning an Albatec Racing run Peugeot 208, and finished on the podium last weekend in Barcelona.
The former Swedish Touring Car Champion says his motivation is as high as ever, and he is working on a budget to compete in the World Championship full-time in the future.
“The World Championship is getting more and more professional, and the margin is smaller and smaller. Everything needs to be almost perfect with the car, the team and the driver.
"When you put everything together in the right direction you can make good results, so I’m looking forward to try to do that [in Germany]. For sure, my target is to try to step up to the World Championship, but it’s always difficult to get the budget together.
"I have very good support from my sponsors, so it’s possibly sometimes better to do the European Championship with a good budget than try to do the World Championship with a bad budget.
"It’s always difficult to know what to do and what’s right, but now we need to continue to focus on finishing this year and try to put something together for next year. I love this life, the motivation to do it is in my body.”
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Portugal WRX: Gronholm claims second win, Hansen extends points lead
Portugal WRX: Hansen leads Gronholm after Saturday's running
The addictive experience of racing a rallycross Supercar
World RX prepares for final European round in Italy
Double victory for team Peugeot-Hansen as Timmy Triumphs
Jeanney wins World RX of Canada for team Peugeot-Hansen
Munnich to run electric cars in World Rallycross next year
Munnich Motorsport takes over KCMG's WTCR entry
Hungary WTCR: Girolami doubles up in wet Race 2
How Haas delivered its F1 "game changer"
Acosta: 2024 MotoGP title "not the priority" as expectations mount
Mercedes becomes first F1 team to exceed £500m turnover
Red Bull’s 2026 F1 engine project “hitting the targets”, says Horner
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments