Volkswagen ready to defend world rally title

Ahead of the new season, which opens with the Rally Monte Carlo today, Volkswagen has made detailed improvements to its World Champion car.

The works team will start the defence of its title with a 315-hp vehicle, which has been the subject of constant development. The four wheel-drive Polo won 10 of the 13 rallies last season, ensuring all three World Championship titles headed to Wolfsburg.

“If you don’t thrust forward in motorsport, you go backwards,” said Motorsport director Jost Capito. “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. Many detailed aspects of the 2014 Polo R WRC have been further developed since we made our debut a year ago.”

Apart from the new design, the World Rally Car from Wolfsburg has been honed under the bonnet. 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.

Volkswagen used one joker to install a new software version for the on-board electronics.

Volkswagen’s Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia will line up for the first time as defending World Champions in both the driver and co-driver competitions.

Together with team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila, they are the team to beat in the Manufacturers’ Championship, in which they can also count on able assistance from Andreas Mikkel-sen/Mikko Markkula.

The Rally Monte Carlo traditionally winds its way through the French Maritime Alps and thus through the hinterland of the principality. The mother of all the stages on the 2014 rally promises to be the special stage between Vitrolles and Faye: it is the longest on the WRC calendar.