Austria

After starting previous seasons with fairly conservative and humble goals in mind, the OMV backed compressed natural gas (CNG) rally team in Austria has its sights firmly set on taking first place for this year's Austrian rally championship season. The season commences next week with the LICO Lavanttal Rally on April 4-5. The OMV team is unchanged from last year, with Beppo Harrach and Andreas Schindlbacher as driver and co-driver respectively and driving a CNG Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX modified by Stohl-Racing. One change this year though will be that the vehicle will be fuelled 100 percent with pure renewable biomethane.

The confidence the team has this year arises from the outstanding success of the first two seasons, with the team earning one first place overall and three third places. Harrach says he feels the vehicle has a distinct advantage in dry conditions but says that wet conditions won't necessarily stand in the way of a first place finish.