Volkswagen to Test Polo R WRC This Year

Volkswagen have recently confirmed that they will debut as a works team in the World Rally Championship in 2013, and will do so with their Polo-based R WRC model. And despite the fact that the car will only make its official debut two years from now, VW Motorsport director Kris Nissen confirmed from as early as the team launch that the car will hit the streets for testing before year end.

“We will be able to run with the car by the end of the year,” said Nissen, who confirmed the company's testing programme will kick off this year. In addition, he revealed that VW's programme has been agreed upon for at least 5 years.

“We will start testing the car. We have an excellent team [in motorsport]. I am very proud of the team. We will run some events with Skoda [Fabia S2000] to train the team on events and to meet the people. This is a five-year programme for Volkswagen. The next two years will be to develop the car and the engine, we will then enter the WRC in 2013, 14 and 15.”

One important asset for Volkswagen in their new WRC programme will be the experience of former champion Carlos Sainz, whom Nissen took “10 seconds” to convince to remain part of the company's efforts in the new programme. In addition, he confirmed that VW will not be part of the 2012 Dakar Rally as a works team, but make the Race Touareg 3 available to customer teams.

“I believe those teams can be competitive in 2012, we won't be there as an official team, but we would like to be there with private teams,” he added.