PoloDriver

In a final push in its Polo R WRC development programme, Volkswagen Motorsport has been authorised to run a ‘proper’, full-fat version of its 2013 World Rally Championship (WRC) challenger in the penultimate round of the 2011 championship, the Rally d’Italia, which takes place in Sardinia on 18-21 October. While its stage times won’t be recorded, the Polo R WRC’s run will be a full-scale test, a dress rehearsal for 2013, when it will take on challengers Citroën and Ford. In a twist of coincidence, Sardinia was the location chosen for the Polo R WRC’s unveiling in May 2011. Autosport reports that the Sardinia car will be driven by the Volkswagen Motorsport number one pairing of Sébastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia, but as the car has yet to be homologated, it will not be a ‘zero’ car, and its running position is yet to be decided.

Meanwhile, the next round of the 2012 WRC championship will see Ogier compete in Finland on 2-5 August. In related Polo R WRC news, Volkswagen Motorsport is rumoured to be fielding up to three cars next year. Ogier will pilot the lead car, while Jari-Matti Latvala from Finland (and current Ford driver) is in the frame to be his number two. More videos of the Polo R WRC testing in both Alicante and Finland have also surfaced online. Sounding even more like an angry swarm of bees than before, the Polo R WRC already looks fairly well developed to us. We need to see it competing – the 2013 WRC championship can’t come soon enough.

Very wet and very muddy stages welcomed competitors on the Volkswagen Rally on 13-14 July. The fourth round of the 2012 South African National Rally Championship took place on the Eastern Cape, and severe weather conditions saw the issuing of flood alerts with possible emergency evacuations mooted. Not ideal conditions for the BP Volkswagen Polo S2000s on their home event, and as the planned fast, action-packed stages became slippery and treacherous, the trio had little else to do but persevere until the end of the event.

The top pairing of Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson pulled out all the stops over the two-day event, and finished fifth overall, despite numerous stage cancellations, and a disappointing 13th place finish at the end of day one. ‘We had high hopes of a good performance in the Eastern Cape,’ said Kuun. ‘When the event turned out to be quite as demanding as this, with the rallying taking place under such severe conditions, we had to keep our wits about us. I think we’ve proved yet again that the new BP Volkswagen Polo S2000 is a good car, we just have to find the combination to unlock that potential.’

The duo of Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries didn’t have as much luck. Good stage times were not enough to keep them in the fight and they had to accept an eighth place overall position by the end of the event. Hans Weijs Jnr and Björn Degandt meanwhile were excited at the prospect of competing in front of the team’s home crowd, but were unprepared for the conditions they faced on the event, rallying their new-for-2012 Polo S2000 to a 12th place finish.

‘The stages looked fantastic on the preview,’ Weijs reported. ‘This looked like our kind of event and we were really looking forward to it. But, it turned out to be our toughest event yet here in South Africa and probably the one we most want to forget. We had made our notes before the event, but with the change in the conditions we had new instructions issued and we couldn’t get these to match our notes properly.’

Two tough days of competition for S2000 Challenge pair Gugu Zulu/Carl Peskin saw them cross the finish line for ninth place overall. ‘Conditions were really tough here this weekend,’ said Zulu. ‘It didn’t matter what we tried, there just didn’t seem to be any grip available on the stages, everything was just mud. We settled into doing the very best we could but with keeping the finish line firmly in sight. We weren’t going to take any chances.’ The duo finished second in their class, bolstering their class lead.

Megan Verlaque and Hilton Auffray were very happy with their performance on the Volkswagen Rally, despite being forced to finish the event under Super Rally conditions. ‘This event saw us use our brand new Polo Vivo S1600,’ explained Verlaque. ‘It is just such a change. The new gearbox, the sequential shift, the feel of the car, everything about it is just so much better. We had a problem on Friday and had to re-enter the event as a Super Rally competitor on Saturday. The potential in the new car is obvious and we cannot wait to tackle the next event and see how well we do!’

‘This was our first opportunity to contest the new 6R-based Volkswagen Polo S2000 under wet conditions,’ said Mike Rowe, head of Volkswagen Motorsport. ‘The events this year have thrown just about every kind of environment at us, but nothing even close to what we experienced this weekend. Finishing in the top five on an event that saw three stages cancelled due to the weather, and with every other stage offering extremely low grip and very little control at speed, shows that we have a good package in the new car,’ Rowe continued. ‘Our focus now is on taking the data we have collected and translating that into a performance advantage for the next round of the series.’

The Volkswagen Polo R Cup India 2012 celebrated its season opening on 6-8 July at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore in the south of the country. In a turbulent race meeting, Avdumber Hede took victory ahead of Mihir Dharkar. Newcomer Sandeep Kumar completed the podium. Mexico’s Diego Duez meanwhile, made a historic victory in the series, being the first international competitor to win a Volkswagen Polo R Cup race. Duez took the chequered flag ahead of Alisha Abdullah and Prashanth Tharani Singh. The series is run by Volkswagen India Motorsport in conjunction with JK Tyres. The field of 20 young racers drive identical and centrally-prepared 1.4-litre TSI engined, 178bhp Polo R Cup cars, new to the 2012 series.

Once again it was a grueling two days of motorsport for the BP Volkswagen rally team, as the Polo S2000s tackled the Toyota Dealer Rally Gauteng on 23-24 June. Punctures affected almost every competitor, and both the cars of Enzo Kuun/Guy Hodgson and Hergen Fekken/Pierre Arries were forced to pull over six kilometres into the first stage and change tyres. The soft nature of the stage environment also meant that the swaps themselves were made all the more difficult, and both pairings lost valuable time. Hans Weijs Jnr/Björn Degandt managed to avoid the flat tyre, but were held up by thick dust which followed in the wake of the slower competitors. It cost the duo dearly – two minutes were lost, time they only managed to claw back in stage three.

The pair were to suffer another bout of bad luck, though, when in stage nine, a puncture finally caught up with them, leaving them no choice but to enther the final stage with an insurmountable time deficit. It wasn’t all bad news, though, as they finished the event in a respectable fifth place. Kuun/Hodgson suffered two further punctures on the penultimate stage, leaving them with no tyres on which to complete the open section on the final stage, forcing a reluctant retirement. Fekken/Arries finished 14th overall, after deciding to compete in the Super Rally on the Saturday, rising from a 26th place starting position.

‘It has been a disappointing weekend after weeks of hard work by the entire BP Volkswagen rally team,’ said head of Volkswagen Motorsport, Mike Rowe. ‘Factors completely out of the team’s control, including roads that were unfit for rally cars, made the weekend what is was, but we used the opportunity to make massive strides with the new BP Volkswagen Polo S2000. That is a significant reward, even if it does not reflect in the standings after this event. We remain optimistic and confident that the BP Volkswagen Polo S2000 will deliver on the results we all know it is capable of.’

Lower down the orders, Gugu Zulu/Carl Peskin finished 8th overall in their Polo Vivo S2000, taking a S2000 Challenge victory in the process, thanks to a finishing time more than 20 minutes ahead of their class rivals. Megan Verlaque/Hilton Auffray posted the fastest time in the S1600 class, to lead their rivals by 28 seconds. Sadly, they had to retire close to the end of the second stage. The BP Volkswagen rally team is now focusing its attention on its home event, the Volkswagen Rally, taking place on the Eastern Cape on 13-14 July.

Round five of the Engen Volkswagen Cup took place as part of the TopGear Festival in Durban, South Africa, on 16-17 June, with Kelvin van der Linde and Kyle Barnes snatched the victories of the two-day meeting. A grueling event, an absence of run-off areas and a track ringed with concrete barriers took its toll on the other competitors. Early casualties Adrian Wood and Mark Silverwood each made an unscheduled – and unwanted – excursion into a wall during a practice session. Wood was able to rebuild his car but Silverwood did not have the option to, and was nursing an injury (as he finished learn first aid skills recently) after his incident.

Wood also snapped a shock absorber – the only part of the car affected by the incident with the wall that wasn’t replaced. This saw him with even more work to do in order to compete in the second race – he couldn’t compete in the first race on the Saturday. Up at the front of the field Kelvin van der Linde was only interested in winning, so he could extend his championship lead. Kyle Barnes started from second and, while he kept his eyes open for a potential gap so he could overtake Van der Linde, he held his second place position throughout the race to guarantee a valuable haul of points, rather than risk both his race car and his points. Defending champion Devin Robertson was definitely among those opting for the cautious approach in the first race by letting both Mathew Hodges and Kosie Weyers challenge for position, the trio finishing third, fourth and fifth respectively.

In race two on Sunday, a grid of 22 enthusiastic Engen Volkswagen Cup racers were ready to put their Polo Vivo racers through their paces. The field tackled the 10-lap race under conditions that were not conducive to bold overtaking. This did not stop Robertson, though, from making a brave move to pass Weyers at the end of the main straight, diving through the turn to snatch third place. This was not a position Weyers was going to be able to take back and he finished behind Robertson who, in turn, crossed the finish line behind race winner Barnes and Van der Linde.

For invitational driver, journalist Sudhir Matai from Car magazine, the Durban event was a highlight for this season. Matai raced in front of his home crowd – and his family – recording a second-place finish in the Masters (rookie) class in race two into the deal. Van der Linde and Barnes swapped race wins in Durban – and this will help further extend van der Linde’s impressive championship lead. The Engen Volkswagen Cup field head to Phakisa Freeway in Welkom for the next round of the championship – and back to the traditional circuits that they are used to competing on.

The 2012 Engen Volkswagen Cup series is similar to the other racing Volkswagen Polo Cup single-series championships run in China, Europe and India. Just as in those official Volkswagen-moderated series, the South African one-make format highlights new driving talent. In the Engen series, as many as 35 drivers regularly take to the track in technically-identical, 2.0-litre 234bhp Volkswagen Polo Vivo racers.

RACE RESULTS
Race 1
1 Kelvin van der Linde (31: Ferodo Racing)
2 Kyle Barnes (4: Gold Liberations/Conti Partner)
3 Mathew Hodges (18: ITR Africa)

Race 2
1 Kyle Barnes (4: Gold Liberations/Conti Partner)
2 Kelvin van der Linde (31: Ferodo Racing)
3 Devin Robertson (1: Big Boss Auto/Sparco)

Overall standings
1 Kelvin van der Linde (31: Ferodo Racing)
2 Kyle Barnes (4: Gold Liberations/Conti Partner)
3 Devin Robertson (1: Big Boss Auto/Sparco)