PoloDriver

Sébastien Ogier has been signed as the first official Volkswagen driver for the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC). The 27-year-old Frenchman and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia (31) are joining the Volkswagen Motorsport squad effective immediately. Ogier, who finished the 2011 WRC in third place, will be instrumental in helping to shape the development of the Polo R WRC for Volkswagen’s 2013 entry in the World Rally Championship.

‘Volkswagen is the number one in Europe and will soon be number one in the world,’ said an exuberant Sébastien Ogier on his arrival in Hanover. ‘I’m sure that they’re going to compete with the goal of clinching the WRC title, and I’m happy to be part of this from the outset.’ And co-driver Julien Ingrassia stresses with self-confidence: ‘We’re looking forward to a team with a fighting spirit and the determination to win. Anything’s possible!’

‘I am very happy about Sébastian Ogier and Julien Ingrassia joining us,’ says Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, Member of the Volkswagen Brand Board of Management for the Development Division. ‘Both of them are important pieces of the puzzle on our way towards building a successful team in the World Rally Championship. It is also a mark of confidence for our team if such a strong pairing opts for a new team in the WRC that is still in the process of being developed.’ Motorsport Director Kris Nissen adds: ‘We are proud that such a successful and quick duo as Sébastian Ogier and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia have decided to join Volkswagen. The aim of putting a competitive Polo R WRC on the road for them as quickly as possible will additionally drive our team. We look forward to working with them and are hoping for many victories and titles in the future.’

Also involved in the contractual negotiations was rally legend Carlos Sainz, who is instrumental in the successful implementation of the WRC 2013 project as an expert adviser to the Volkswagen team. ‘For me, Sébastien is one of the world’s three best drivers,’ praises the two-time World Rally Champion (1990, 1992) and 2010 Dakar winner. The Frenchman, who was Junior WRC Champion in 2008 and third in the 2011 WRC, is considered one of the world’s best drivers. Many experts view the rally racer, who is also a licenced ski instructor, as the upcoming World Champion. In the past season, he won five rallies, thus winning the same number of events as the subsequent world champion Sébastien Loeb. In 2010, in Portugal, he mounted the top of the podium for the first time and has been successful at seven WRC rounds so far.

Ogier will perform his first run as a Volkswagen factory driver at the Race Of Champions at the ESPRIT arena in Düsseldorf on 3 and 4 December, being pitted against the other ‘Super Seb’ – Sebastian Vettel from Formula One.

Profile: Sébastien Ogier
Date and place of birth: 17 December 1983, Gap, Hautes Alpes (France)
Height: 1.81m
Weight: 75kg
Profession: Ski Instructor
Successes: 2008 Junior World Rally Champion; 2010 First victory at the Portugal Rally;
45 rallies, 7 victories, 14 podium places.

Profile: Julien Ingrassia
Date and place of birth: 26 November 1979, Aix-en-Provence (France)
Height: 1.83m
Weight: 72kg
Profession: Businessman
Successes: 2008 Junior World Rally Champion; 2010 First victory at the Portugal Rally;
45 rallies, 7 victories, 14 podium places.

[Source: Volkswagen Motorsport]

In true racing Polo style, the latest round of the 2011 Engen Volkswagen Cup at the Zwartkops circuit in Pretoria saw lots of wheel-to-wheel action. The weekend of 5-6 November saw eager drivers piling altogether into the narrow circuit’s corners, sometimes trading paint, sometimes swapping more. Despite not starting on pole position for either race Kosie Weyers was one of the first drivers into the scrum in both races, and went for every gap to emerge victorious on race day, taking the chequered flag in both runnings, with Kelvin van der Linde crossing the line in second place twice.

Lee Thompson in one of the Ferodo Racing Polo Vivos filled the last place on the podium in race one, while Devin Robertson in the Sparco car was third-placed in the second. Robertson now leads the 2011 championship, followed by Graham Donker in second place, and Miguel Pasqualli in third. The final round of the championship is on 26-27 November, once again at Zwartkops. The 2011 Engen Volkswagen Cup series is similar to the other racing VW Polo Cup single-series championships run in both Europe and India. Just as in those series, the one-make format highlights a wealth of new young driving talent. In the Engen championship, as many as thirty drivers regularly take to the track in technically-identical, 2.0-litre, 234bhp 2011 Volkswagen Polo Vivo racing cars.

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Although not officially points scoring, one of the Volkswagen Motorsport-prepared Škoda Fabias emerged victorious in the S2000 class on the Rally GB on 11-13 November, also netting a twelfth place overall. Dutchman Kevin Abbring and co-driver Lara Vanneste’s result was the season’s best for the Volkswagen Motorsport team, while German driver Sepp Wiegand faced retirement on round 13, when along with co-driver Timo Gottschalk, he had been running in third place in the S2000 class.

With 354km of special stages, Rally GB was Volkswagen Motorsport’s fourth running of the Škoda Fabia S2000 pairing, to primarily gain test data for the company’s Polo R WRC car which will take to the forests, ice tracks and tarmac in 2013. Also evaluating young driving talents, Volkswagen Motorsport Director Kris Nissen was pleased with the latest stage of the programme: ‘Rally GB represents one of the biggest challenges in the WRC. Kevin Abbring and Lara Vanneste showed a very strong driving performance.’

The next competitive run planned by the Volkswagen factory team will be the legendary Monte Carlo Rally which will run from 18-22 January 2012. Two officially-prepared 270bhp four-wheel drive Škoda Fabia S2000s will take part in the season opener, which returns to the WRC calendar for the first time since 2009. The official Volkswagen Motorsport press release and image gallery follows.

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Once again the Irungattukottai Race Track, Chennai hosted the last round of the Volkswagen Polo R Cup India 2011, as the drivers fought for honours over the weekend of 15-16 October. Round 5 saw 21 year-old Rahil Noorani from Mumbai finish first in race one, with Oshan Kothadiya coming in behind just 2.375 seconds after Noorani’s time of 20.46 minutes. Avdumber Hede rounded out the podium 2.477 seconds after Kothadiya. Gaurav Dalal took the chequered flag in the second race in 20.43 minutes, with Vishnu Prasad following 4.907 seconds later. Mihir Dharkar finished third. Vishnu Prasad leads the championship overall, as the series moves to its final round in Noida on 25-27 November, 5 points ahead of Noorani. The series is run by Volkswagen India Motorsport in conjunction with JK Tyres. The field of 20 young racers drive identical and centrally-prepared 129bhp TDI Polo R Cup cars.

It’s all about rallying Polos this week. Last night, after Volkswagen Motorsport officially released details of the first Polo R WRC test in Veldenz, near Trier, Germany, Rallye-Mad.com posted another video of the premiere run, this time from day two. Another two-minute film, the rally Polo gets really angry, slipping, sliding and handbrake-turning into all sorts of leaf-covered, tree-lined hairpin corners. Once again, 1980s rally legend Carlos Sainz and Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, Member of the Volkswagen Brand Board of Management for the Development Division are the drivers. Sounding as sensationally pent-up as it did yesterday, click here for yesterday’s official preliminary testing details and atmospheric film from Volkswagen Motorsport, and here for the first Rallye-Mad.com video.

[Source: Rallye-Mad.com]