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Mladá Boleslav, 20 February, 2012 - Scheduled for the upcoming weekend, the Azores Rally is about to open the 2012 season of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC). After the most successful year in the 111-year history of its motorsport efforts, ŠKODA's ambition in 2012 is to win a third consecutive championship title in the Manufacturers category of the IRC. The first event of the new season will see five Fabia Super 2000s on the start line. The hottest favourites for winning the Azores Rally are its last year's winner and SWRC champion Juho Hänninen and reigning IRC champion Andreas Mikkelsen. The IRC series will offer altogether 13 events this year.

Commenting on the IRC series-opening event, Michal Hrabánek, Head of ŠKODA Motorsport, says: "Our goal for this season is to repeat our last year's victory in the Manufacturers category of the IRC, and we expect the drivers of the factory Fabia Super 2000s, Juho Hänninen and Jan Kopecký of ŠKODA Motorsport, as well as Andreas Mikkelsen of ŠKODA UK Motorsport, to be the key contributors to meeting this goal. We are very pleased that the ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland team has become fully involved in the Fabia Super 2000 project, thus enlarging the family of ŠKODA vehicles to appear in this attractive championship."

Reigning world champion Juho Hänninen can't wait to appear on the start line of the Azores Rally: "I really love this event, the local scenery is awesome, and it's gravel, my favourite surface. The nature of the track is rather different from that of other events. I will do my best to put in a good performance, because our ambition is to win the maximum possible number of points for ŠKODA."

ŠKODA AUTO Deutschland's young talent Sepp Wiegand (with the experienced Timo Gottschalk as his co-driver) will make his IRC debut and his first appearance in the Azores. Private Fabia Super 2000s to appear in the Azores will be driven by Red Bull's Hermann Gassner (with the enormously experienced Klaus Wicha) and Rashid Al Ketbi of the Skydive Dubai Rally Team (with Khalid Al Kendi).

The biggest of the Azores Islands, Sao Miguel, is the most distant venue of this year's IRC series. Taking place in beautiful scenery, the event is made up of 14 special stages (198 kilometres in total), including the legendary stage around the rim of a flooded volcano.

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