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may 15, 2018 - Porsche

Porsche - Of Defiance and Diplomacy

He beat them all up. Anyone who made fun of his red hair. “I didn’t let them get away with anything. That gave me strength for the rest of my life,” says Walter Röhrl, who was usually allowed to leave school in the Bavarian city of Regensburg ten minutes before class was over at the end of the day. His teachers were too concerned that he would be teased and respond by landing some well-placed blows. And he’s kept that boldness into adulthood. “At the Monte Carlo Rally I showed them who’s boss!” There’s only one person who’s ever been able to dictate his course—codriver #christiangeistdorfer, with whom he entered rallies from 1977 to 1987.

The two men could not be more different. One is defiant, the other diplomatic. One of them curses up and down the alphabet at the slightest hint of injustice—“and you can hear it a hundred meters away,” says the seventy-one-year-old Röhrl. And the other prefers to reflect until he finds a thoughtful solution. What they share is an unconditional trust in each other. “In the cockpit, we’ve each placed our lives in the other’s hands,” says the sixty-five-year-old Geistdörfer.

Mille Miglia was considered the toughest race in the world

Today’s #millemiglia is no longer a matter of life and death. From 1927 to 1957 it was considered the toughest race in the world. But now “the Mille,” as Röhrl calls it, is one of the most high-profile rallies for vintage cars. The winner is not the vehicle with the fastest time but rather the team that collects the fewest penalty points over the course of more than eighty special trials as well as passage and time controls. A contest of consistency.