VW POLO GTI R5 OUTING FOR MCCORMACK ON CORK RALLY
‘The car of the moment’ will be rallied for first time in UK or Ireland later this month
Marty Mccormack will become the first driver to rally a Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 in the UK or Ireland when he starts the Cork 20 International Rally later this month.
The car will be hired from Dom Buckley RSC, the same firm that looks after Mccormack’s Skoda Fabia R5, and he is excited to try “the car of the moment”.
“It was always something we were quite interested in ever since it came out, the Polo, and obviously with Craig [Breen]’s performance in Ypres and he was raving about how good the car was, it was always something I wanted to try,” Mccormack told Motorsport News.
“I’d say it’s definitely the car of the moment at the minute so it will be interesting to see what it’s like. Rather than going to [the] Galloway Hills [Rally last weekend] out on gravel, which I know the Skoda has a good pace on, I was interested to take the
Polo to Ireland and see what the pace was like on Tarmac. You can see that the pace is definitely there in the [Irish Tarmac] Championship so that’s a proven thing I wanted to be a part of.”
Mccormack tested the car this week but said he’d be “talking sh*te” if he were to nail down any expectations in terms of a result. But he has heard only good things about the Polo’s performance and admitted switching to the VW in 2020 “is always a possibility”.
“We’re not just taking a run out in the Polo for a day’s craic, we want to go and see what it’s like and see how it compares,” he said.
“It’s pretty much like the Skoda but [feels like] more of a rally car. It feels closer to a World [Rally]
Car. It’s exciting and there’s a bit of hype about it because it’s the first time one will be used in the UK or Ireland and the first time in the Irish Championship but they’re being used well in Europe so it’s no real big thing.”
Mccormack was due to drive a Proton Iriz R5 on Rali Bae Ceredigion but instead switched back to the Ford Escort Mk2 he had originally entered into the event. Cork 20 will be Mccormack’s last event before November’s Roger Albert Clark Rally.