Ahead of
the Monte next week, Volkswagen has released pics of its latest 315-hp Polo R World
Rally Car and its new colour scheme, with Motorsport Director Jost Capito explaining:
“If you don’t go forwards in motorsport,
you go backwards. When it comes to technical development, you simply cannot
afford to let up for a single second. Although we won some laurels in 2013, we
have certainly not rested on them. The manufacturers
in the World Rally Championship agreed not to homologate any new World Rally
Cars for the 2014 season.”
“Despite this, we tried
to take full advantage of the options still available to us. Many detailed
aspects of the 2014 Polo R WRC have been further developed since we made our
debut twelve months ago. Every single member of the team cannot wait to find
out where we stand compared to the strong competition we will face from Citroën
and Ford, as well as our new opposition at Hyundai.”
“Besides optimising
chassis components and new set-up variants for the drive train, the priority
for the engineers was to improve the stability of the car and they have installed
a new software version for the on-board electronics.”
“As well as the pure
performance, a major plus in 2013 was the reliability of the Polo R WRC. In 13
World Championship rallies – three with two cars and ten with three the works
team did not suffer any engine damage. There was just one technical fault: a
loose connection in the electronics.”
In other words, the team
which set the pace last year shows no signs of letting up – worrying times for
all the others, eh?
