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The OMV CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) Team has made rally history: for the first time worldwide at an international Championship, Beppo Harrach and Andreas Schindlbacher won in a natural gas driven car.

That this happened at the Ostarrichi-Rallye makes it a seminal victory since it was at this very event that a natural gas Mitsubishi had first been employed about a year and a half ago. It is also remarkable that this win wasn't achieved with the new CNG Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX but rather with its precursor, the Evo VI!

When 18 months ago a CNG Mitsubishi Lancer first entered the international rally stage, top 10 results had been the professed goal. After all, there had been no experience with natural gas driven 4x4 vehicles. But Günther Aschacher and the Stohl Racing Team did their homework with enormous commitment, and at the Ostarrichi-Rallye 2007 they finally could reap the fruits of their labour.

A world premiere that naturally also overjoys OMV driver Beppo Harrach: "It is incredible. One, of course, dreams at times of a sensation. But one almost can't believe it when it actually happens. This victory has a lot of fathers and was made possible by the cooperation of a whole team that has never stopped believing in this project."

After day one Beppo Harrach had still been in second place. But following the retirement of Franz Wittmann Jun he took the lead from the first special stage of the second day on and constantly extended it. At the finish line he was 47.7 seconds ahead of Mario Saibel in the petrol-driven group A Mitsubishi. When the latter came closer during the rally the OMV CNG Team marked, with an average of 104.8 km/h, the fastest time of the whole rally on the next-to-last special stage. Result: a superior overall best time.

Harrach: "This championship run is far from being an easy one since one can inspect each special stage only three times, and the bad weather conditions added their own. In such a situation one has to be able to completely rely on one's co-driver, and Andreas Schindlbacher did a sensational job."

Following a successful race in 2004, it was the second overall victory for Beppo Harrach at a run to the Austrian Rally Championship.

Due to the retirement of Martin Ertl the OMV CNG Team has also prematurely decided the OSK Cup for alternative-fuel-driven vehicles (Division IV) in their favour. Prior to the OMV Rally Waldviertel, the 28-year-old man from Bruck leads by 48 points and cannot be overtaken anymore.