Long-time German Euro RX1 driver and owner of the succesfully All-Ink.com Munnich Motorsport outfit, Rene Munnich won his first-ever round on international level last weekend as the FIA European Rallycross Championship visited Loheac for round two.
Munnich, who has always been a front-runner since he stepped up from RX3 (previously known as Super 1600) has finally managed to score his first-ever victory in the RX1 (ex-Supercars) class. Munnich has stood on the podiums several times but this time after several close wins, he finally managed to take it.
During the four qualifications rounds, Munnich managed to slot himself fourth overall against 24 other RX1 drivers entered and won two of his qualifying races to have a comfort position heading to the semi-finals.
At the start of the final, it didn’t look like Munnich would win will and a second place finish was looking to be happening instead, until the penultimate lap when the current championship leader, Norwegian’s Andreas Bakkerud have led the final since the start. As they both approached the final turn, Bakkerud’s speed suddenly went down and he pulled over to the side with what seemed to be an engine misfire. Munnich took advantage of this and from there on he crossed the final in first.
“I’ve been competing in the European Championship for 15 years – before coming here, I looked at an entry list from back in 2007 when I started, and it featured the fathers of some of the drivers racing now!” Munnich said.
“It’s a great feeling to get our first international win in rallycross. I feel sorry for Andreas [Bakkerud] for his bad luck in the final – he was the quickest and he deserved to win – but that’s motorsport sometimes.”
Finishing in second place was DA Racing’s own local hero Andrea Dubourg, who celebrated his podium finish honours for his brother Jean-Baptiste Dubourg, who sadly suffered an injured arm after a massive crash with the barrier in the last qualifying heat. Hungarian’s Tamas Karai took the third podium spot.
Bakkerud finished fourth after his misfortune ahead of his ES-Motorsport’s team-mate Janis Baumanis and another local hero Fabien Pailler rounded up the final with a DNF.
Jean-Baptiste also announced his retirement the day after and will stay out rest of the season to heal for the upcoming Trophee-Andros in winter.
