The king stays away
Yesterday, the Scuderia Augustusburg Brühl, organizer of this year’s ADAC Rallye Köln-Ahrweiler, published the official list of participants.
A total of 75 teams will take on the special stages around the Nürburgring on the second weekend in November. While overall victory is likely to go to one of the starters in the RC2 class – where reigning overall winner Christopher Gerhard is also competing – many fans are disappointed by the absence of another well-known name.
The 15-time overall winner Georg Berlandy, affectionately known by many as the “King of the Cologne-Ahrweiler”, will not be competing this year. We can only speculate about the reasons for his withdrawal – but it is certainly regrettable.
Instead, there will be four Skoda Fabia R5s on the grid in the RC2 class, which have the best chance of overall victory from a technical perspective. However, the Taiwanese duo Daiwei Yein / Tsungyu Hsieh are more likely to gain experience in their first outing in the Eifel. In the author’s opinion, the battle for overall victory will probably be decided between Christopher Gerhard and Dennis Rosteck.
But the Eifel is known to have its own laws. Unpredictable weather and challenging tracks regularly provide surprises. For example, Florian Feustel in the Porsche IROC RSR or Yann Munnhoven in the BMW M3 E30 could upset some of the more modern cars with their youngtimers and drive far to the front.
Other starters are also good for surprises – the Cologne-Ahrweiler Rally remains exciting right to the end. We will wait and see and report after the finale.
Starter list 2025
https://www.adac-sport.com/ADAC_Rallye_Koeln_Ahrweiler_14926/TW_ON_Teilnehmerliste.php