Watch: Former WRC Champ’s First Polo RX Drive

Volkswagen has decided to get its rallycross act together and hired former World Rally Champion Petter Solberg to help the team become the FIA World Rallycross Champions. His first test with the car just found its way onto YouTube.

Despite dominating in the American Red Bull Global Rallycross Championship, VW has had more trouble finding success in Europe’s WRX series.

Volkswagen Motorsport worked with Sweden’s Marklund Motorsport last year to create Volkswagen Team Sweden. Although the team’s top driver, Johan Kristoffersson finished the season in second place overall, the team finished in third, well back of Peugeot and EKS.

Petter Solberg, meanwhile, ended the season tied for third, only one point back of Kristoffersson.

With Solberg, though, VW isn’t just getting another world class driver into its Polo RX, it’s also getting team leader with proven ability. Solberg’s team, PSRX, finished the 2016 season in 5^th place. Not an especially outstanding result, until you account for the fact that Petter Solberg was the only driver on his team, and his was the only team racing a Citroen DS3. Despite those impediments, he finished ahead of three teams, each with twice as many drivers.

And this year, his PSRX team will be running the VW day to day. A quick look at his first ever test lap in the new Polo RX, and things look good for this season.

Round 1 of the 2017 World Rallycross Championship starts on March 31 in Barcelona.

The post Watch: Former WRC Champ’s First Polo RX Drive appeared first on VWVortex.

from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2kdGu2C
via IFTTT

Comments

2018 Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster Review

“Supercars just don’t excite me anymore.” These words, spoken to me over a month ago by another journalist, friend, and (so-called) enthusiast were echoing in my head for far too long, but they’ve finally been drowned out. Drowned out by the wail of a naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12 engine mounted in the middle of the new Lamborghini Aventador S Roadster. My friend’s point is that back in the good old days, there was a crop of supercars that captured the imagination with amazing style, sounds, performance, and more. Today, it seems like everything is capable of supercar performance, with large luxury sedans outdoing some of the best and most dedicated teams of car nuts, while former pillars of automotive excellence are suddenly pumping out family-friendly SUVs. Beyond that, another league of supercars, dubbed hypercars have cropped up with hybrid gas-electric powertrains that make magical things happen quickly, but at the cost of the acoustic drama, visual flair, and engag...

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...

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...

Vorderman Volkswagen

Search This Blog