Volkswagen bosses pleased with debut outing for new R5 Polo
Volkswagen Motorsport will look to enter a selection of rallies to continue the development of its Polo GTI R5 next season.
The world’s latest R5 car made an immediate impression at last week’s Rally of Spain with both Petter Solberg and Eric Camilli setting fastest times – the cars ran first and second mid-way through the opening day. Only Camilli’s car suffered any mechanical issues when a selector rod on the gearbox broke on Saturday, while he was leading WRC2. Solberg went on to finish third in the class behind factory Skoda drivers Kalle Rovanpera and Jan Kopecky.
Motorsport director Sven Smeets said he was happy with the performance and now looks forward to going away to find more pace.
Smeets told Motorsport News: “We are very, very happy with the first event. We have learned so much more than we would on a test and that’s what we were here for. We have a list of places where we know we can get quicker. We faced a steep learning curve on gravel and especially on Tarmac in the rain – Petter had never tested the car in these conditions and we don’t have so much experience.
“We’ve made changes to the car where we wouldn’t have in competition. Petter wanted to make changes to find out how the car would react so we could learn more than in the test – on the test you quickly learn the road and then you set the car up for that one road. Here it’s a compromise, but we learned a lot. We had a small problem, but the selector rod’s a standard part and something we can easily sort.”
Smeets said no decision had been made on a possible next outing for the factory’s test car.
“It won’t be this year and it won’t be Monte Carlo,” said Smeets. “We have customers going to Sweden so there’s no point in us going there and, for sure, we won’t go to the overseas events [outside Europe]. We might go to some European events, maybe we’ll do Ypres or Barum or something.”
He confirmed he wanted to continue to work with Camilli and Solberg in the test programme, with both drivers potentially returning to competition in the car.