MINI Confirmed as 2012 World Rally Championship Competitor
MINI finally confirms their entry into the 2012 World Rally Championship after missing the official entry deadline of December the 19th. MINI has had issues with coverage of the event in the past and it seems has tried to make a statement about their dilemma.
A source in the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) said, “We have an agreement that Mini will be registered as a manufacturer for this year’s championship. We understand there are existing concerns over the position of the promoter – and particularly the implications for the sport’s coverage in Germany, but we are addressing those concerns.”
MINI also announced along with its entry that they will only be running one factory car rather than the originally planned two. The driver of the MINI factory team WRC car will be Dani Sordo, with the other MINI factory team driver Kris Meeke not in the running this year. “This is not an ideal situation. Ideally we wanted, in fact everybody involved wanted, the original plan of two cars, two drivers: Sordo and Meeke doing all 13 rounds. That wasn’t possible, so we had to find a solution which we have done. The priority here is that Mini is a manufacturer in the 2012 WRC”, said the source inside the FIA.
MINI has not confirmed yet whether they will be running their WRC car in the most expensive rounds of the championship such as Rally New Zealand, but has said that they are submitting the car to the full world championship.
[Source: Autosport]
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