Top drivers in a clinch

Reproach to rally king: “Behavior last class”

Simon Wagner after the Murtal Rally.(Bild: GEPA pictures/ Wolfgang Grebien)

Full throttle not only in their Skoda cars: Austria's top drivers are fighting like never before after the Murtal Rally: Hermann Neubauer rants about national champion and heat winner Simon Wagner: "His behavior is last class!" But Austria's "drift dominator" smiles away all accusations!

"That's last class of him," hisses one of them. "It's all his own fault," said the other.

The horsepower duel between Simon Wagner and Hermann Neubauer is now no longer limited to Skoda cars on asphalt and gravel, but also includes verbal carnage with the odd "drift" to extreme accusations.

Reproach cause for escalation

Background: Although the winner, Wagner had accused his toughest rival of taking a shortcut at the Murtal Rally at the weekend, accused the race stewards of inactivity and tried to prove everything with a video.

Hermann Neubauer in the Skoda.(Bild: Harald Illmer)

 "But that is absolutely no proof, even if my action looks stupid," emphasizes Neubauer. He saw the "ride" across a meadow as the only way to avoid a crash - and was proved right by the race control. However, Wagner remains adamant: "It was a shortcut - and there are two videos that prove that he didn't just take it."

I find this behavior last class. It's simply not humanly correct, he's acting like a defiant child.

Hermann Neubauer über Simon Wagner

"Then Mr. Wagner should please present them to us! We are not here to take action on our own initiative. He came to us three times at this rally and complained," emphasized Wolfgang Doberer, the chairman of the three race stewards of the Austrian Motorsport Federation AMF who were on duty at the Murtal Rally. Neubauer: "What's more, Wagner announced anyway that he was going to shit me with protests!"

Verbal exchange of blows
This announcement is also the reason why the Salzburg native has the following to say about the Murtal winner, ÖMS leader and series champion: "I find this behavior last class. It's just not humanly correct, he's acting like a defiant child!"

He lodged a protest against me last season and had previously commissioned 15 photographers to catch me leaving the track if possible.

Simon Wagner über Hermann Neubauer

An accusation that Wagner smiles away: "Neubauer started all of this by lodging a protest against me at the Rebenland Rally last season and then instructing 15 photographers to catch me leaving the route if possible." Grinning postscript: "And yet he still didn't win the rally or the championship!"