Munnich Motorsport drivers Rene Munnich and Timo Scheider ended the Saturday of the opening Americas Rallycross event at Silverstone in a positive mood after the privateer Seat team finished the day as best of the rest behind the dominant Andretti Volkswagens.
Munnich comes into Sunday third in the qualifying standings after a pair of fifth places and a second in his Q2 heat.
“It was a nice day today, three good heats for both Timo and me,” said the driver-owner. “Okay one heat for Timo was not so good but I think on Sunday he will have another good heat and then he is front of the semis maybe and then we’ll see what happens.”
Saturday brought much improved weather from the tricky changeable conditions of Friday, which left the team fighting with setup changes on their new car that only made its track debut earlier this week.
“You have to change the car completely when it is wet and especially this track was really slippery at first, so this is just surviving, not driving,” said Munnich.
Timo Scheider’s Saturday was filled with drama – Credit: Dominik Wilde
Saturday was much more eventful for Scheider, who retired from his Q1 heat after contact with Subaru‘s Patrik Sandell, before being forced to drive most of his Q2 race with his bonnet open and obscuring his view.
“It was quite an interesting day. We started the day pretty good by being quickest in warm-up, and I think it was quite positive from the beginning onwards,” said ex-DTM driver Scheider. “We’ve been on the same sort of level as the Volkswagens from the beginning which was a surprise, so I was really optimistic for the day.”
“Unfortunately, we had the issue from the start with Sandell in Q1, so a DNF was then for sure a bad start to the day in terms of racing,” he added. “Then Q2 was okay for at least one and a half laps and then we had the issue with the bonnet – the bonnet came up. That was a pretty tough race for me – leading the race for three laps out of four, managing P2 in the end was a fun result let’s say in one way, but it was dangerous on the other side”
“I’m quite optimistic to show even more performance on Sunday,” said Scheider. “We’re sitting P7 with one DNF, it would be nice to get one more spot at least, or two, overall. I’m so far quite happy with the pure performance of the car and myself.”
