VW Finishes First and Third at Belgian Rallycross

A wild race led to PSRX Volkswagen Team Sweden’s first victory in the 2017 season of the FIA World Rallycross Championship. Johan Kristoffersson climbed to the top spot on the podium, dethroning series leader Mattias Ekström for the first time this season.

His teammate, meanwhile, Petter Solberg, finished third after nearly losing it on the third lap. Solberg had been leading up to that point, but a bad final corner meant that the second-place Timmy Hansen out-dragged him on the front straight. Side-by-side going into the first corner, Solberg overcommitted himself on the outside and only just managed to recover, albeit in Andreas Bakkerud’s way, sending the Ford driver into the wall and a rage.

Krsitoffersson had jokered (finished his one, extra long lap) the previous lap and was stuck behind Ekström, who had not. Things weren’t looking good for Kristoffersson, who was racing towards a podium place but was losing ground to the first place Hansen as a result of being stuck behind what effectively amounted to a backmarker.

A puncture for Hansen on the penultimate lap, though, meant that Kristoffersson was able to take first. Hansen drove his tripod heroically, though, and managed to hang on to second place, crossing the finish line alongside, but ahead of, Solberg.

Petter Solberg (N) Volkswagen Polo GTI Supercar WRX Mettet 2017

“This is special. What an incredible feeling,” said Kristoffersson after the race. “I know Petter and I have talked about this a few times this year, but I think we are both so happy with the way the team is working with Volkswagen Motorsport and the speed we have had this weekend has shown that. The car has been perfect for me.”

The Belgian round of the WRX was the fourth, and the only one so far not won by Mattias Ekström and his Audi.

886x498px_vw-20170514-9837

Despite losing the race, Ekström is still first in the drivers’ standings, though his lead is anything but safe. Thanks to his strong finishes, Kristoffersson (98 pts) is only three points back of Ekstöm (101 pts). Solberg, meanwhile, is in third with 87 points.

The two VW drivers, though, have been finishing well all season, so their team leads the championship with 131 points, 17 points head of Ekström’s team, EKS.

Kristoffersson will look for his second victory of the season at the next event at the UK’s Lydden Hill racetrack, starting on May 26.

The post VW Finishes First and Third at Belgian Rallycross appeared first on VWVortex.

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

Comments

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...

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...

Vorderman Volkswagen

Search This Blog