World RX of Portugal preview
News release
April 24, 2015
World RX of Portugal preview
Finally! The waiting is over. It’s been a long 136 days since the final round of the 2014 FIA World Rallycross Championship. But we don’t have to wait any more. We can start the engines again now. The new season is starting. And it starts somewhere where I have very, very good memories.
I won this race last year and I can’t tell you how good the feeling was when I stood on top of the car and celebrated. You guys know me and you know how emotional I get about motorsport and winning is everything for me; to win with my own team was a really special moment – and a reason I will always love this track and this country.
Winning the championship last year, was such a big deal for the PSRX team and defending the title this season will be even harder.
There’s going to be some incredible competition coming from so many of the teams in 2015 – the manufacturers have really moved up a gear or two in making their cars quicker and for an independent team like ours, it’s hardwork to keep up with them and their bigger budgets.
But, we haven’t been sleeping all through the winter. In fact, we haven’t had much sleep at all; the team has done an amazing job with the car through the closed season. We did some development work late last year and, with the championship won, we ran some evolution parts on the car in the final race. They worked well and gave us a good platform to work on through the winter. We’re confident our car will be quicker again this year, which is good news because the other guys won’t be going any slower!
But on Saturday morning we go to the track for the first time on the same level, we are all in the lead of the championship and we are all at the bottom of the table. It’s all about what we can make from round one, we need to be clever and quick to try to repeat our victory from last year.
We have a new alliance for this year as I join forces with Liam Doran to make SDRX – Solberg-Doran Rallycross. We will both work on our own cars like we did last year, but we will both be scoring points in the teams’ championship. We took one title last season, this year we want two!
Circuit:
Length: 1050m
Joker lap: 1150m
Maximum width: 16m
Minimum width: 14m
Tarmac: 60%
Dirt 40%
Website: www.cavr.pt
Timetable – all local times
Saturday April 25
1130 practice
1400 qualifying heats
Sunday April 26
0900 warm up
1030 qualifying heats
1500 semi-final
1530 final
1610 WRX winners’ press conference
Last time we were here…
It was the start of the perfect year. Petter won the first ever round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship. That was the first of five wins in a season where he was crowned world champion by the FIA for the second time in his career. Petter was unbeaten in Portugal from heat three onwards, winning his semi-final and final.
Portugal in números:
-16 Celsius is the coldest temperature recorded in Portugal
1 is the number of places producing Vinho do Porto – port wine (Portugal)
4 is the number of times Petter crossed the line first at Montalegre last year
8.6 Celsius is the average temperature in Montalegre in April
10 corners at the Montalegre track
20 is the number of European Roller Hockey titles Portugal has won
47.4 Celsius is the hottest temperature recorded in Portugal
100 metres is how much further Petter will travel on his joker lap at Montalegre
108 mm is the average amount of rainfall in Montalegre in April
600 years is how long the Portuguese Empire lasted from 1415 to 1999
884 metres is the altitude of Montalegre
3272 hours since Petter won the last World RX 2014 round in Argentina
10537 people live in the Montalegre municipality
15365 is how many times Petter will blink on Sunday
PSRX media contact:
Per-Espen Lochen
+46 76 110 7 110
+47 952 43 245
World RX of Portugal media
José Alves
+351 914 842 012
pettersolberg.com
@Petter_Solberg
www.facebook.com/PetterSolbergWRC
Produced in association with words pr (www.wordspr.com)
Sandra Evans
sandra@wordspr.com
44 7887 693993
www.wordspr.com
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