VW PLOTS A RETURN TO TOP FLIGHT COMPETITION
Firm’ s boss es keen on a move into the new electric rally cross series
Volkswagen is targeting a factory-level return to motorsport in an electrified World Rallycross Championship.
The German manufacturer is already gearing up its electric entry for next year’s Pikes Peak and an electric rallycross car would likely build from that knowledge of batteries and electric drivetrain technology.
After departing the World Rally Championship following the diesel-gate scandal at the end of 2016, Volkswagen has worked more on customer-based projects, such as its Golf GTI TCR race car and more recently the Polo GTI R5.
Supporting Petter Solberg’s PSRX squad in this year’s World Rallycross Championship has been an instant hit, with Swede Johan Kristoffersson taking the title in a Polo GTI Supercar.
Between him and Solberg, they won eight of the 12 races and took the teams’ title by 129 points from the Peugeot-hansen challenge.
But Volkswagen Motorsport director Sven Smeets said the Pikes Peak car holds the key to the firm’s return to factory-level participation in motorsport.
“I can emphasise it [Pikes Peak] is the project for 2018,” he said. “For the future, we have to do well and prove the concept is working with an eye to the future in the electric world in motorsport.”
And Volkswagen’s eye is firmly on E-WRX rather than Formula E.
Smeets toldmn: “For us it’s clear when we enter as a works team [it will] always be with cars very closely linked to the product on the road. So, if we can call it E-WRX, it would be one of the first series we could have a proper look at because it would fulfil those requirements.”
Smeets confirmed Volkswagen Motorsport has joined other manufacturers on the FIA’S technical working group regarding the electrification of WRX.
“As a motorsport company we want to be at the heart of motorsport and be somewhere with a works team. Today it’s not the case, but we are concentrating on all of the projects – and there are a few – to make a success of them all. But E-WRX could be something in the future that we have a good look at.”
World Rallycross promoter Paul Bellamy admitted he was working towards electrifying the series for 2020.
“This is at the top of our agenda,” Bellamy toldmn. “We are in regular dialogue with the FIA about the regulations and what
“We want a factory team” SVEN SMEETS
form electric WRX would take. One of the major areas we are working on is keeping this championship affordable and not just affordable for the manufacturers, but the privateers as well.
“We are talking to nine manufacturers about this – including the incumbents Volkswagen, Peugeot and Audi – and they want this for 2020. That’s feasible, but we have to work to get the regulations absolutely right and then get them delivered as quickly as possible. This is a very exciting space right now.”
Volkswagen’s Pikes Peak car will be revealed in March or April next year, when it will also start testing.
“The Pikes Peak car is progressing in-house,” said Smeets. “Another big part of the company is fully into that and we are very close to the first wind tunnel concept. We hope to present a proper car in March or April, but for testing, it’s not so easy. We can only run at Pikes Peak at the official test in June. Otherwise we are looking for uphill roads and, of course, our own test track in Wolfsburg.”
A regular road-going electric Volkswagen car is already being tested, with Smeets adding: “This [car] has nothing to do with Pikes Peak, it’s just to confirmthe drivetrain and battery concept.”
Volkswagen’s record in motorsport has been exceptional, with a hat-trick of Dakar victories a precursor to the marque’s move into the World Rally Championship. After a year of learning the ropes with a Skoda Fabia S2000, the Polo R WRC arrived in 2013 and won the drivers’ (Sebastien Ogier) and manufacturers’ titles for the next four years.
And then there was this year’s success with the PSRX Volkswagen Sweden squad, a shared enterprise with Volkswagen Motorsport in Hanover preparing the cars, which were then run by three-time FIA world champion Solberg.
While Smeets considers a potential E-WRX venture, he says nothing will change in the Solberg alliance in the immediate future.
Smeets said: “The idea is that we run in exactly the same conditions as 2017 in next year’s World Rallycross Championship.”
Solberg welcomed the news of a possible Volkswagen return at factory level. The Norwegian told MN: “World Rallycross is really coming now, we have seen this for the last couple of years and this [electric] vehicle is the next step for the series. To have Volkswagen behind this would be massive – just look what they did when they came to the World Rally Championship. It would be incredible for the future of this sport.”
Volkswagen is not the only manufacturer looking at stepping up its involvement in WRX, with Peugeot canning its Dakar project in order to focus on next year’s World Rallycross series with Sebastien Loeb leading the attack.