Volkswagen - which was backed by Red Bull on the Dakar Rally - begins its 2013 World Rally Car campaign in earnest on this week’s Rally Finland, running young drivers Andreas Mikkelsen of Norway and Finland’s Jonas Lindroos in Skoda Fabia S2000s. The first half of the Rally Finland has provided mixed fortunes for the two with Mikkelsen right in the middle of the race at the front of the S2000 World Rally Championship, while Lindroos went off on SS8.
The WRC Volkswagens are bearing the Wings for Life logo: a charity set up to help research into spinal cord injuries.
Here are five things that you may not know about Volkswagen and rallying, along with a few suggested bumper stickers for the German squad...
My other car’s a Porsche
The father of Volkswagen was Dr Ferdinand Porsche, who received a commission to design a ‘people’s car’ to set criteria from Volkswagen’s first customer: Adolf Hitler. The prototype was completed in 1935, but Volkswagen then found that their despotic client had changed his original brief and wanted a load of military vehicles instead. Sensing that something extremely dodgy was in the offing, Dr Porsche moved his business out to Austria and concentrated on building high-class sports cars.
This is not an abandoned vehicle
Volkwagen has the record of having the longest production car run for any model in the world. The VW Beetle was produced continuously between 1938 up to 2003 (in Mexico) with more than 21 million of them built. By contrast, there will probably only be 8-10 Polo WRCs built every year once production is up and running.
I may be slow, but I’m still in front of you
Volkswagen already has one World Rally Championship win under its belt, thanks to Kenneth Eriksson’s victory in the 1987 Ivory Coast Rally in Africa with a Golf GTI. This rally was so tough and demanding that in 1972 there were no finishers at all. Following the event, which Eriksson won by 20 minutes, Volkswagen actually climbed as high as third in the manufacturers’ championship, just behind Lancia and Audi.
I need someone really bad. Are you really bad?
Volkswagen is on a recruitment drive to fill the two seats for the 2013 season onwards. It may involve the lucky winners taking a bit of a sabbatical in 2012 in order to test and develop the new Polo WRC. Former World Champion Petter Solberg has been linked with one of the seats, while Red Bull-backed German rally champion Hermann Gassner Junior has also been suggested for the other. But there are a few other names in the hat.
The King is back in town
Carlos Sainz returned to Rally Finland for the first time since he retired from driving in 2004 on this week’s event. The double World Rally Champion and personal friend of the King of Spain is a key part of Volkswagen’s return to the WRC - and Sainz has particularly good memories of Jyvaskyla, having become the first driver to break the Scandinavian’s stranglehold on the event when he won for Toyota in 1990. Sainz is advising team director Kris Nissen on all aspects of the new programme.
Want more?
- Visit the Rally Finland event page
- World Rally Championship official website wrc.com
- More motorsports from redbull.com
- Indie Music Blog | Finns that make you go Hmmm
- Learn more about Wings For Life
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