World RX: Stohl admits Solberg will be hard to topple

Former World Rally Championship driver Manfred Stohl thinks that anyone hoping to displace Petter Solberg as World Rallycross champion will have their work cut out this season.

Stohl announced his full-time 2015 entry to World RX last month at the Team Austria launch in Vienna, and he believes Solberg has a strong chance of retaining his crown.

"I think what Petter has shown already in 2014 is impressive," he said. "When I was with him in the race in Argentina, I saw the way he is working. Even if you have the best car and the best driver, Petter has his structure behind him, which is massive."

The Austrian made his World RX debut at San Luis in Argentina last November, driving for Solberg's PSRX squad.

"To win against him, you need to try very, very hard.

"I did not really believe what I saw, but I think it's one proper family," he said. "It impressed me very much working with Petter's whole team, it's just incredible.

"I think Petter is the target, the benchmark for everyone."

Stohl predicts that it will take time for his new squad, where he is partnered with team principle Max Pucher, to get up to front-running pace in world rallycross.

"We saw with Petter in his first year [2013] – he was already a rallycross driver before, he found it hard. I told the Austrian media at our launch, 'Please excuse us if we make mistakes, because we will have problems because we don't have so much experience.'

"We want to make mistakes of our own – we want to learn from those."

Originally on Autosport.com