Acid test for the new Polo R WRC: Volkswagen factory driver Sébastien Ogier and the former World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz put the Polo for the World Rally Championship (WRC) to a tough test in Spain.
The two rally aces – Ogier is seen by many experts as future world rally champion, Sainz, with two title wins and 26 rally victories is one of the most successful drivers in WRC history – covered around 700 kilometres, equating to about twice the distance of a WRC rally, without any problem in order to take new vehicle components to their stress and load limits and to thus gather important findings for the further development.
Volkswagen will be making its debut in the World Rally Championship with the Polo R WRC in 2013 and is running an extensive testing and development programme until then.
“Around 70 per cent of the WRC consists of gravel tracks, about 20 per cent of asphalt and roughly 10 per cent of ice and snow. The gravel test in Spain served to simulate the roughest WRC sections and to take the car to its load and stress limits. Particularly chassis components such as the hub carriers, dampers and suspension components were successfully tested in the limit range,” says Volkswagen Motorsport Director Kris Nissen.
“Carlos Sainz and Sébastien Ogier are working together extremely well – the two are forming a very good combination. They respect each other without any rivalry and are purposefully driving the project forwards. Our next step will be to run further tests on tarmac in order to complete our specifications book and to then check off each item on the list.”
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