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.

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