Skip to main content

Volkswagen Earns 1-2 to End WRC Era

It was a bittersweet end to the WRC season in Australia, as everyone knew that the quadruple championship-winning Volkswagen Motorsport would not return for the next season. Its drivers, all—as far as we know—without a WRC seat next year were racing for their lives as they looked for employment next year.

In  the end, Andreas Mikkelsen, Volkswagen’s young gun put on the best performance racing his way to victory at the Kennards Hire Rally Australia, with his championship-winning teammate, Sebastien Ogier, behind him in second.

Although Mikkelsen eventually won the race by a healthy 14 seconds, it was by no means an easy victory.

With a healthy lead on Saturday, Mikkelsen’s brake pedal twisted and fixing it cost him nine seconds. With that, Ogier was back on his tail and drawing him in.

Unfortunately, Ogier made a rare mistake on the last day of competition, spinning the car and dashing his hopes of catching his Norwegian teammate.

Rally Australia 2016

“What a fantastic weekend, and what a wonderful result at the end of our season,” said Mikkelsen after the race. “Today has been a very special day, as it was our last appearance as a team. I was so desperate to win this rally for Volkswagen.”

It wasn’t all elation for the race winner, though. As his excitement subsided, sadness reared its head.

“It’s just sad to see all this nice team and car come to an end,” Mikkelsen told reporters after the race. “I told [my co-driver] in the car in the stage that ‘Wow, I will miss this team and this car.’ Very sad.”

Rally Australia 2016

Jari-Matti Latvala, meanwhile, considered one of the quickest drivers in WRC today, but for his tendency to occasionally hit race-ending obstacles, ended the rally as he so often did, trying to salvage a result after hitting—this time—a bridge.

And so, after 13 races, nine Volkswagen race victories (at least one for each driver), and a team championship, the 2016 WRC season ends and with it Volkswagen’s WRC team.

Ogier handily won the drivers’ championship—more than 100 points ahead of the second place Thierry Neuville—while Mikkelsen took third, missing second place in the drivers’ rankings by just four points. Latvala, meanwhile finished the season in sixth place.

Rally Australia 2016

The post Volkswagen Earns 1-2 to End WRC Era appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2eYVCS5
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

Watch: The Zerouno Cruis’n USA

ItalDesign is drumming up excitement for its new supercar based around the same 5.2-liter Audi V10 that powers the R8. Naturally, it hit the road for a cruise around California last week to celebrate Monterey Car Week. There isn’t much in the way of V10 noise—which is a real shame given the sound it makes—but you do at least get a good look at the car inside and out in this video. With a body made entirely of carbon fiber and designed to be as aerodynamic and light as possible, ItalDesign figures that it will be good for a 0-60 time of just 3.2 seconds. “We put it our best skills into the production of the first car,” said Massimo Bovi, head of pre-series production, when the Zerouno was first unveiled in Geneva earlier this year. “Using some of the finest productions methods and engaging our high-skilled workers.” The car features clever aero tricks gleaned from single-seat racing, like a y-duct up front to improve downforce and turn-in. Available in a number of trim levels, the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volkswagen Golf GTE Wins Top Honor at the 2015 Business Techies Awards

Golf GTE wins Green category in the 2015 BusinessCar Fleet Technology awards Judges praised the Golf GTE for its performance, ease of use and economy Golf GTE launched earlier this year with plug-in hybrid technology – priced from £33,755 204 PS performance combined with CO 2  emissions of just 39 g/km Volkswagen has added to its growing list of 2015 automotive industry accolades by winning the Green category in the annual BusinessCar Fleet Technology Awards – the Techies. The prestigious title was awarded to Volkswagen for the Golf GTE, an innovative plug-in hybrid that combines sporty dynamics with exceptional fuel economy and low CO 2  emissions. Now in their seventh year, the Techies are judged by both BusinessCar’s experienced editorial panel with help from TRL’s technology expert. The industry’s only technology-specific awards, the BusinessCar Techies reward the use of technology to make business car fleet operations easier, cheaper, cleaner, safer and more straig...
Post a Comment
Read more