In what is now his tenth start, Simon Wagner and Hanna Ostlender achieved their long-awaited triumph in the Hyundai i20 N Rally2 Step2: victory at Jännerrallye – the only rally in Austria that had previously been missing from his list of achievements. “This success has finally broken the curse,” said the five-time national champion, visibly relieved.
Particularly impressive: the victory was achieved as a start-to-finish win. Wagner already made his mark in qualifying, setting the fastest time worthy of a national champion. He confirmed this on the very first stage with another fastest time and took the lead. A lead he did not relinquish until the finish line in a thrilling battle with Michael Lengauer.
The Wagner/Ostender duo thus prevailed against exceptionally strong international competition this year, including World Championship driver Mads Østberg and Junior World Champion Romet Jürgenson. In addition, apart from Adrien Forumeaux, all of the Jännerrallye winners from the last seven years competed this year. “You’re never ready for the Jännerrallye, no matter how much you’re prepared for it,” Wagner laughs: “There are so many unpredictable factors here, especially the weather conditions and the extremely changeable stage conditions, which make it anything but easy. Many thanks to Marco and my brother Julian, who supported us perfectly with their ice notes. The combination of consistency, tactical sensitivity, and yet high speed proved to be the recipe for our success here.“
For Simon Wagner and Hanna Ostlender there could have been no better start into the new year than with this victory: “The Jännerrallye is always something special, and winning here at home feels incredibly good. The past few days have been incredibly exhausting, with extremely difficult conditions. We made almost no mistakes, did our thing consistently, and can celebrate the victory now. The fact that we were also able to win the Powerstage with such a big gap shows what we are capable of and is simply fantastic,” said Wagner happily at the finish line.
“I think we have once again shown an incredibly good teamwork. A huge thank you to Hanna, our Hyundai engineer Damian, and the entire Servis Podlesnik team – you are all amazing,” said Wagner, visibly grateful.
With his victory at the 2026 Jännerrallye, Simon Wagner has now completed his cycle of success in the Austrian Rally Championship and made an impressive statement right at the start of the year. Together with their Powerstage win, Wagner and Ostlender also secured the maximum possible points at the start of the season. This means that Wagner has now been unbeaten in Austria for one total year and continues to be the benchmark against which the competition must measure itself.
