Skip to main content

Volkswagen Off to Successful Start in Monte Carlo



  • Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia end day one of the WRC season in second place overall

  • Extremely tough conditions: wet asphalt compounds treacherous ice and snow

  • Latvala/Anttila third, Mikkelsen/Fløene seventh


Volkswagen is second and third overall following the early exchanges at the Rally Monte Carlo. Day one of the opening round of the 2015 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) saw the drivers put through their paces, as they were constantly forced to make the transition between ice, snow and wet asphalt on what were already demanding night stages. Given the conditions, the starting order was a deciding factor in whether the drivers’ stage times were good or not so good. Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (F/F), at the wheel of the new Polo R WRC, were embroiled in an exciting duel with Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena (F/MC, Citroën), which ended 1:1 after the first 40.99 kilometres of the rally. At the end of the opening day, leader Loeb and second-placed Ogier were separated by just 13.3 seconds. In third place are Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila (FIN/FIN) in the second of the second generation Polo R WRCs. Andreas Mikkelsen/Ola Fløene (N/N) ended day one of the legendary “Monte” in seventh place.



Quotes after day one of the Rally Monte Carlo


Sébastien Ogier, Volkswagen Polo R WRC #1

“Opening the route was anything but easy today. The conditions changed constantly, particularly on the first stage. Wet asphalt or black ice – you never knew exactly what was awaiting you. On the whole, there was little grip anywhere. As such, we took a particularly cautious approach and did not take any risks. That was clearly not the fastest method on the opening stage, but it was the right one.”


Jari-Matti Latvala, Volkswagen Polo R WRC #2

“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such a difficult start to the ‘Monte’ as this evening’s first stage. It was very difficult to judge the constantly changing levels of grip. You could easily lose minutes there, so I was still quite happy with our time. On stage two, the boot came open from time to time, as the latch was broken. That irritated me a bit. Apart from that, it was a decent start to the Rally Monte Carlo for us.”


Andreas Mikkelsen, Volkswagen Polo R WRC #9

“It doesn’t get any more ‘Monte’ than it was today. Those were two incredibly difficult special stages to start the new season. The conditions changed all the time. There was a lot of ice and snow on stage one, then a lot of black ice on the second special stage. I just tried to get through safely and avoid taking any risks. We had four studded tyres and two winter tyres with us today. That was not the worst selection in the world.”


Jost Capito, Volkswagen Motorsport Director

“We saw today just how exciting and tense the ‘Monte’ can be. The duel between the two Sebs ended 1:1. Both Sébastien Ogier and Sébastien Loeb made the most of the conditions when they were out on the route. They both benefitted from their starting position on one stage, and were hampered on the other. The gap between the two of them is relatively small, by Rally Monte Carlo standards. I am sure this duel will entertain us over the coming days. However, Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen also produced solid displays in extremely difficult conditions and did not take any unnecessary risks. Given the way we have started, it is going to be an exciting ‘Monte’ for us.“


And then there was …


… a nostalgic look back. Who knows whether Volkswagen Motorsport Director Jost Capito and star guest Jacky Ickx discussed the 1985 Rally Dakar today? Their memories of it are very different in any case. Exactly 30 years ago to the day, father Karl-Friedrich Capito and son Jost won the truck competition at the legendary desert rally. Meanwhile, Jacky Ickx and his then co-driver Claude Brasseur, in their Porsche 959, were forced to retire from the car competition at the half-way point. Back then the route covered 7,470 kilometres of special stages from Paris through Algiers, to Dakar.




























































FIA World Rally Championship (WRC),

Rally Monte Carlo – Results
Thursday,

22 January 2015		km#1

Ogier/

Ingrassia		#2

Latvala/

Anttila		#9

Mikkelsen/

Fløene
SS 01Entrevaux–

Rouaine		21.31P03

(+ 30.9s)		P08

(+ 43.0s)		P13

(+ 53.9s)
SS 02Norante–

Digne-les-Bains		19.68P01P02

(+ 10.7s)		P05

(+ 23.6s)
Overall classificationP02

(+ 13.3s)		P03

(+ 36.1s)		P07

(+ 59.9s)

































































FIA World Rally Championship (WRC),

Rally Monte Carlo – TV broadcast
Western Europe
Andorra (Canal +); Austria (ORF, Servus TV, Sport1, N-TV, LAOLA1.tv); Belgium (Canal +, RTBF); Denmark (Viasat); Europe (MOTORS TV); Finland (YLE, Nelonen); France (Canal +, France TV, Léquipe 21); Germany (Sport1, N-TV, Servus TV, LAOLA1.tv, Sky); Greece (OTE); Italy (RAI, Fox Sports, Dinamica); Ireland (BT Sport); Lichtenstein (N-TV, Sport1, Servus TV); Luxembourg (Canal +, N-TV, Servus TV, Sport1); Israel (Charlton); Monaco (Canal +, France TV, Léquipe 21); Netherlands (RTL7); Norway (VIASAT); Portugal (Sport TV, RTP); Slovakia (Sport 5); Spain (Canal +, TVE, TV3); Sweden (SVT); Switzerland (Canal +, N-TV, Sport1, Servus TV); Turkey (NTV); UK (BT Sport, itv4); Wales (S4C)
Eastern Europe
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan (Auto Plus); Bosnia and Herzigovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia (Arena TV); Czech Republic (Czech TV, Sport 5); Hungary (Sport1); Lithuania (Auto Plus, BTV, LNK); Poland (TVP); Romania (Dolce Sport); Ukraine (First Automotive Channel, Auto Plus)
Middle East and Africa
Angola, Cap Verde, Mozambique (Canal +, Sport TV, SuperSport); Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, São Tomé, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe (Canal +, SuperSport); Ethopia, Mauritania, Seychelles (Canal +); Lesotho, Liberia, Mayotte, Reunion, Socotra, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, St Helena & Ascension, Sudan, Swaziland (SuperSport)
Asia Pacific
Australia (Fox Sports); American Samoa, Baker Island, Guam, Howland Islands, Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, Micronesia, Midway Islands, Navassa Island, Norther Marianas, Palau, U.S. Virgin Islands, Wake Islands (MAV TV); China (PPTV); Indonesia (MNC); Japan (J Sports); Malaysia (Astro); New Zealand (Sky Sports, TV 3); Thailand (Truevision)
North and Latin America
Argentina, Uruguay (Channel 12, Fox Sports); Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago (MAV TV); Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Venezuela (Fox Sports); Mexico (Fox Sports, TV4); Paraguay (Fox Sports, Telefuturo), USA (MAV TV, Fox Sports)

The post Volkswagen Off to Successful Start in Monte Carlo appeared first on VWVortex.






from VWVortex http://ift.tt/1uCnyh2

via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Project SportWagen: Going Stage 2 with APR

    When we last left you, the humble little SportWagen was fresh from the development process with our friends at AWE Tuning, sporting a new downpipe, exhaust and intake, allowing things to breathe a bit easier.  The car sounded great, but there was no getting around the fact that our wagon was still quite, well, slow.   While we realize that nothing we do to the Golf SportWagen at this point will make it a race car, we still felt compelled to do something .  To put it bluntly, we had a fever, and the only cure was more power. Flash forward a few hours, and we found ourselves at Waterfest, staring down APR’s palatial spread and the numerous tuned vehicles surrounding it.  Earlier in the year, APR had hinted to us that their 1.8 TSI files would be quite impressive, and based on what they were able to do with the 2.0 TSI found in the new GTI and our time in their Golf R, we knew it’d be worth the wait.  So with this in mind, we lined our G...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volkswagen Group Records Best Ever First-Half-of-Year Sales

With 5.5 million vehicles in customer hands after the first six months of 2018, the Volkswagen Group is seeing the best performance of its history. Group deliveries increased significantly in all core regions,” said Fred Kappler, head of sales for the Group. “Our core brands recorded strong growth in the first half year.” For the year-to-date, all of Volkswagen’s brands had sales bumps. MAN, SEAT, and Skoda led the sales charge with performances 24%, 17% and 11% better than the previous year. The big sellers, too, had strong sales periods, with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Audi, and Volkswagen sales rising 3.5%, 4.5% and 6.3% respectively. That last figure is particularly good new for the board, since Volkswagen alone sold more than 3 million vehicles in the first half of 2018. As Kappler stated, the numbers are equally good when you break sales down by region. Brazil and Russia were the most improved markets (22% and 20%, respectively), while strong sales in Europe and China (u...
2 comments
Read more

Project Golf SportWagen- Intro

I’ve never really been one for SUVs and crossovers.  The current offerings aren’t the body-on-frame, go-anywhere specialty tools I remember from my youth, and what they lack in capability, they also lack in on-road performance. The current crop isn’t terribly good at handling or being efficient, which in my opinion are major components of our ideal driving experience.  So when it comes to space or utility, I usually look for something of the wagon variety- and it seems that I’m not alone. We hit quite a few shows around the east coast each summer, and we see modified Jetta SportWagens at nearly every event. Even amongst common consumers, these cars are highly sought-after. They don’t depreciate much, making even early Mk 5 2.5 versions expensive in comparison to other Jettas or Golfs of the same vintage. This year, Volkswagen launched their latest SportWagen, which is now billed as a Golf.  In many ways, this latest SportWagen is the best yet and it has certai...
Post a Comment
Read more