RX: Munnich to switch focus on World Rallycross with Audi

Munnich Motorsport has announced it has entered the World Rallycross championship for 2015 and the series will be the team's main focus for the upcoming season

World Touring Car and GT team Munnich Motorsport has announced it will focus on the FIA World Rallycross championship for the 2015 season.

Team owner WTCC driver Rene Munnich will race in one of the two Audi S3 RX Supercars entered for the 2015 World Rallycross season.

The team made its debut at last year's German round of the series and plan to use 2015 as a development year, with its sights set on the team title in 2016.

"World RX will be our main programme this year," Munnich confirmed. "We will use this year to learn and then we want to fight for the title in 2016. We are pleased about the development of rallycross as a sport and the fact that we can develop our own car is what makes this Championship so special."

The team are yet to confirm who will compete for them in the second car, and several drivers are expected to be testing the Audi over the coming weeks.

Last year,The German team helped Gianni Morbidelli to ninth in the WTCC drivers standings, notching up one victory in Hungary, as the team finished fourth in the Yokohama teams' trophy.

"The line-up of competitors such as Petter Solberg will make this year very challenging for us but we're very excited to be competing in World RX full-time and can't wait to get started," he explained.

"Even without a strong result in Germany, we saw that our car is fast enough to score a top ten placing and it was interesting to see how the requirements for the cars change as a result of some of the circuits," he added. "The top speed on the World RX tracks is high and the grip is much better so we need to adapt the car accordingly.

"We have a different engine in the car since Estering as well as a new gearbox, new differentials and brakes. We also changed the geometry of the rear axle and have a new weight balance. It's basically a completely new car. Our team has grown to more than 20 people and we will have more engineers and mechanics this year to help with the development of the cars."

Munnich Motorsport are set to become the second all-new team to participate in this year's World Rallycross. The season kicks off with World RX of Portugal at the end of April.

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