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After four years of crushing domination in the World Rally Championship, Volkswagen Motorsport announced their decision to withdraw from the top level of the sport late last year in the wake of the Volkswagen Group diesel emissions scandal. The 2017-specification Polo WRC was just one of a list of high-profile casualties caused by 'Dieselgate', its promise left unfulfilled, finished cars left gathering dust.
Rumours of a Volkswagen R5 car had been circulating for some time, and today Volkswagen Motorsport has announced its rallying return, albeit in a somewhat smaller capacity. The new Polo GTI R5 will debut in the second half of next year, and will do battle with other R5 cars like the Ford Fiesta, Skoda Fabia, and upcoming Citroen C3 and Toyota Yaris.
R5 is the car of choice for WRC2, the second tier of the World Rally Championship, as well as many national-level series around the world, and the cost-effective category is aimed at privateer teams as opposed to full works outfits. Sales figures for Fiesta and Fabia R5s prove that the formula is solid, so if Volkswagen Motorsport can produce a competitive car, we should see plenty of Polo GTI R5s on stages near and far.
Like the other cars in the class, the new Polo will feature an all-wheel drive transmission, a five-speed sequential gearbox, and a power output of around 270hp from its 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbocharged engine. Working in the Polo's favour are the expertise that Volkswagen Motorsport has gleaned from years of WRC successes, the fact that stablemate Skoda has the excellent Fabia R5 already in production, and its crack team of engineers that includes Francois-Xavier 'FX' Demaison, the man largely responsible for the old Polo R WRC car's dominance.
Sven Smeets, former co-driver for Freddy Loix and now Volkswagen Motorsport's technical director, commented, "With the Polo GTI R5 we are hoping to transfer our expertise from four WRC titles to customer racing successfully, and offer a first-class racing machine for countless rally championships from national series to the WRC. Before the first race outing next year, we will subject the Polo GTI R5 to rigorous testing to make sure it is prepared for the extremely varied track conditions around the world."