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At last! Volkswagen’s rising rallying star Andreas Mikkelsen took his first FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) win at the recent Rally Spain, which took place in the Catalonia region from 22-25 October. The penultimate round of the 2015 series, the last two runnings of the event were won by Mikkelsen’s team-mate and current world rally champion Sébastien Ogier.

Seventh 2015 one-two
The young Norwegian Mikkelsen has risen through the rallying ranks and was part of Volkswagen’s S2000 programme which readied the squad for WRC glory using Skoda Fabia S2000s in the lead-up to a full world championship assault in 2013.

Mikkelsen and his co-driver Ola Fløene’s Spanish win gave Volkswagen Motorsport its seventh 2015 one-two in Spain, ahead of Finns Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila. After 63 starts and 12 podium positions, Mikkelsen and Fløene finally stood on the top step on the rostrum and took their well-deserved plaudits.

Sébastien Ogier and co-driver Julien Ingrassia were forced to retire after a rare slip-up saw them hit a crash barrier on the asphalt section of the event and render their Polo R WRC undrivable due to the severity of the damage the car sustained. The result didn’t matter however: Ogier and Ingrassia have already been crowned overall 2015 world rally champions*.

Dramatic end
It was a close and dramatic end to a spectacular event, the only one on the WRC calendar to mix both gravel and asphalt surfaces. (The Volkswagen Motorsport mechanics changed over 4044 individual parts including wheels, gearbox, chassis geometry and dampers, and transformed the Polo R WRC from gravel muncher to asphalt skimmer in around 75 minutes!)

A puncture on the 12th stage brought Latvala’s duel with rally leader Ogier to a premature end, with the Finn losing almost a minute. But, through a determined drive, he bounced back into second place and into another fight, this time with Mikkelsen. A game of cat and mouse then saw Latvala suffer another puncture in stage 20, while Mikkelsen spun his car on stage 21 which cost him time.

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In a repeat of 2014, Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila took victory at the 2015 Rally France, held on the island of Corsica from 1 to 4 October. Last year the Finnish pair and their Polo R WRC won the French event, staged in the Alsace region of the country. M-Sport’s Elfyn Evans and Daniel Barritt were second, while Volkswagen Motorsport team-mates Andreas Mikkelsen and Ola Fløene rounded out the podium.

Notable by their absence, soon-to-be-confirmed* 2015 world champions Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia finished the event in 15th place, after a brace of maladies affecting Polo R WRC #1. A slow puncture on day one lost the French duo 1 minute and 40 seconds and they were then handed a 10-minute penalty for changing the gearbox outside of a regular service. The pair started the Corsican event again under under Rally 2 regulations.

Adverse weather conditions
Adverse weather conditions – which included heavy rainfall and landslides – led to the cancellation of two of the nine 2015 Rally France stages. That didn’t stop Latvala, though, who, along with Anttila, are only the second Finnish crew to win an event on the Mediterranean island after Markku Alén and Ilkka Kivimäki took the spoils in 1983 and 1984.

An elated Latvala said: ‘I am struggling to put it all into words. It is a fantastic feeling to win here on Corsica. The conditions were not easy again today, as we were constantly switching between dry and damp sections. And my lead over Elfyn Evans was not exactly what you would call comfortable.

‘Despite this, I wanted to avoid taking too many risks, to extend my lead in a controlled and cool manner, and to wrap up the win. I did exactly that. I would like to dedicate my victory to my idol Henri Toivonen, who lost his life in Corsica. That is another reason why today is such a special day for me.’

A second win on asphalt
The Finns’ top podium spot marks the pair’s second win on asphalt (not a rallying Finns’ traditional winning surface), their 15th in total and eighth in the Volkswagen Polo R WRC. The win also bolsters Latvala’s second place standing in the overall drivers’ points table and makes it more difficult for third-placed Volkswagen driver Mikkelsen to gain ground on the 30 year-old.

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With two Polo S2000s taking podium places at the 2015 Toyota Cape Dealer Rally on 18-19 September, the Volkswagen Sasolracing team celebrated at the event in the Western Cape. The crews of Gugu Zulu and Hilton Auffray, and Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries finished second and third respectively. In addition, Volkswagen Sasolracing was also handed the Manufacturer’s Award.

‘Best finish to date’
Zulu was understanably pleased with his and Auffray’s result: ‘Second place on the podium is my best finish to date,’ he said. ‘The longer, sweeping stages out here in the Western Cape make for a very tough and long event and we had to push – but not too hard. Rallying is a fine line between absolute pace and caution to get to the finish.’

Fekken and Arries meanwhile scored a second consecutive podium appearance on the tracks around Cape Town & Malmesbury. ‘This is a very good result for the team,’ remarked Fekken. ‘We had a puncture which cost us time, but we had a really good event overall. We pushed right up until the end, ending with a clean rally and another podium.’

Sadly, the Polo S2000 of Henk Lategan and Barry White developed an issue on the final section of stage 13 and ended in retirement for the third Volkswagen Sasolracing crew. The pair came home fourth, but had put in the best performance of the weekend. The first stage of day two saw the duo third-quickest, followed by second quickest times for the following four stages. Lategan and White actually produced the fastest times for stages 10, 11 and 12.

‘A fantastic result’
Mike Rowe, Head of Volkswagen Motorsport South Africa, was pleased with the overall result of his team but disappointed with the retirement of Lategan and White: ‘It’s a fantastic result. The Volkswagen Sasolracing team did well and were there at the finish when it mattered, crossing the line for second and third.

‘The stars of the rally were Henk Lategan and Barry White who didn’t put a foot wrong the whole event. Henk and Barry really should have won today: they had great pace and won rally stages, but aren’t here at the finish through no fault of their own.’

The eighth and final round of the South African National Rally Championship is the Polokwane Rally which takes place on 16-17 October around Limpopo.

At the tenth round of the 2015 FIA World Rallycross Championship, the 18-20 September World RX of Spain, Johan Kristoffersson was the highest-placed Volkswagen Polo finisher, coming home second ahead of fellow Polo pilot Tanner Foust in fifth.

‘Fantastic job’
Kristofferssen was runner-up to current rallycross world champion Petter Solberg. ‘It feels awesome to be a part of the winner’s press conference again. I would like to thank my team: they did a fantastic job with the car, which worked magnificently and just keeps getting faster,’ said the Volkswagen Team Sweden Polo WRX driver.

The podium spot leaves Kristoffersson in third place in the overall drivers’ points table with 182 points, while the Swede also posted the fastest lap time of the weekend in his 600bhp Polo WRX Supercar.

Kristoffersson’s team-mate Tord Linnerud went out in the semi-final. However, the pair’s European Championship team-mate Ole Christian Veiby won the Euro RX part of the Spanish event after another Polo driver, Tommy Rustad, was disqualified.

Launch control
‘A victory is always a victory, but to be honest, this is not the way I want to win. I was car number two over the finish line, but rules are rules and that means I got the victory after all,’ said Veiby. Rustad had somehow activated the launch control system on his Polo RX during the race, when it is only permitted at the start of a race.

Veiby is now back in the fight for a trophy in the European Championship classification, after the penultimate round at the 1.133mile-long Formula 1 Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. ‘The event in Spain was a “make or break it” in terms of the chances to get a medal in the Euro RX this season,’ said an elated Veiby.

25,000-strong crowd
Foust meanwhile put on a show for the 25,000-strong crowd in Barcelona and was the highest-placed Polo RX driver from the Marklund Motorsport squad. Thomas ‘Topi’ Heikkinen went out in the semi-final race and finished the event in eighth place.

Coming from a podium at the World RX of Canada, Foust, the US TV star and two-time Formula Drift Champion remains the only American to have a won a round of the World Rallycross Championship having triumphed at last year’s World RX of Finland.

The next round of the 2015 FIA World Rallycross Championship, the World RX of Turkey, will take place in Istanbul from 2-4 October.

2015 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1 Petter Solberg, Citroën DS3: 243
2 Timmy Hansen, Peugeot 208: 208
3 Johan Kristoffersson, Volkswagen Polo WRX: 182
4 Davy Jeanney, Peugeot 208: 166
5 Andreas Bakkerud, Ford Fiesta ST: 163

2015 FIA WORLD RALLYCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP,

TEAMS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1 Team Peugeot-Hansen: 374
2 Ford Olsbergs MSE: 297
3 SDRX: 268
4 Marklund Motorsport: 216
5 Volkswagen Team Sweden: 214

In a triumphant and jubilant show of skill, Volkswagen Motorsport has once again taken the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) season titles. With a one-two finish in the red dust of Rally Australia, the victorious French pairing of Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia lifted the 2015 Drivers’ and Co-Drivers’ Championship crowns, while Volkswagen Motorsport took the manufacturers’ laurels, the third time in as many seasons.

Ogier and Ingrassia may have won the event and the 2015 title, but the second place of Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila meant they could help the Frenchmen celebrate, too. Citroën’s Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle spoilt the all-Volkswagen Australian podium party: a slightly disappointed Andreas Mikkelsen and Ola Fløene had to ‘settle;’ for fourth place.

Formidable Frenchmen
As in 2014, Volkswagen Motorsport has secured the trio of WRC titles with more 2015 rallies still to come. Ogier and Ingrassia have proved an almost unbeatable and formidable duo this season, and so great is their advantage in the overall standings that neither they or Volkswagen Motorsport can be caught in the remaining quarter of season. In total, Volkswagen drivers have won nine out of the 10 rallies so far in 2015.

Day three of Rally Australia saw Ogier and Ingrassia lead Meeke and Nagle by just two car lengths. With the 2015 titles in their grasp, the French pair extended the gap to 32.6 seconds. Latvala and Anttila then leap-frogged the Citroën pair to fall just 12.3 seconds behind Ogier and Ingrassia at the finish line. Mikkelsen and Fløene had kept Meeke and Nagle out off the podium places on the final day, but sadly incurred a late time check arrival penalty which added 10 seconds to their result.

It wasn’t all bad news for the Norwegians, though. The duo took third-place in the final test, the Power Stage, where they joined Ogier and Ingrassia as well as Latvala and Anttila in taking additional bonus points for Volkswagen. It was the 61st, 62nd and 63rd time in 30 Power Stages that the German manufacturer had picked up extra points.

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