The head of Skoda Motorsport, Michal Hrabanek, says that the new Fabia RS Rally2 will be available to the customers from next September, but the Czech brand still faces difficulties to make that happen.
Skoda Motorsport completed the development test of this new Fabia in Greece recently as Kris Meeke and Emil Lindholm were behind the wheel, but it is still unknown when the deliveries will happen as the brand from Mlada Boleslav faced supply issues this year which postponed the car debut for three months. More specifically, Toksport was about to take part with Fabia RS Rally2 at Rally Finland last August, but eventually Andreas Mikkelsen participated with it in Lausitz Rally earlier this month due to the fact that the Czech brand could not have enough spare parts. Last but not least, the war between Russia-Ukraine obstacled their initial plans which means that the customers are waiting for a long time.
"It’s still difficult", Hrabanek said.
"On one hand we could build more cars, but we will have no spare parts for those.
"At the beginning of the project, the package of spare parts is more or less plus one car for the team.
"We don’t want to promise something we are not able to fulfil in the future.
"That’s why we are in touch with the teams who will get the car in the next months, but we don’t promise you will get it exactly in, for example, September ’23 or something.
"We are telling our customers: ‘Please keep your current car, we will supply you with spare parts. The car is still good enough and competitive. Rely on the material you have, and we will know more when we can supply the new car.’
"It is tough though.
"We know everybody wants the car and we want to sell the car to everybody, but what can we do?
"We cannot satisfy everybody.
"It is frustrating.
"We know how good the new car is.
"At our premiere in Lausitz, everything was according to our expectation – we had no technical troubles and also the crew, Andreas and Torstein, performed very well.
"I think they were on the safe side, but still able to win.
"I think they controlled the whole rally and I think it was a good start for the car.
"Of course, it was a local rally but when we talk about the mileage it was comparable with normal national championships and the target group of the car.
"The European and World championship rallies are longer, but when I remember the first start with the Fabia R5 in 2015 it was also one of the Czech championship rallies".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Skoda
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