Volkswagen Motorsport Presents Polo GTI R5 To First Customers

First it was the Volkswagen Polo R WRC, now it’s the Polo GTI R5. With the World Rally Car version of the Polo, the Volkswagen works team won four FIA World Rally Championships between 2013 and 2016.
The production-based successor model was developed according to category R5 regulations and is intended exclusively for customer racing.

• Shortly after homologation, Volkswagen Motorsport presented the new rally car to customers.
  Representatives of the privateer teams visited the headquarters in Hannover, where they got to experience the 200 kW (272 PS) four-wheel drive at a test centre near Sulingen.

  Volkswagen Motorsport Director Sven Smeets explains “The Polo GTI R5 has completed around 9,000 test kilometres to date, half of which were on gravel and half on asphalt. The entire development team has worked hard and delivered a first-class result, which has been confirmed by the initial reactions of customers.”
  
  Juliane Gründl, head of sales at Volkswagen Motorsport added “The feedback from this introductory session was extremely positive. Almost all the teams already have definite plans in place for using the car in the 2019 rally season and cannot wait to get their hands on their Polo GTI R5.”

• Competitive Debut at WRC event in Spain at the end of October

  The homologation of the Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 is planned to take place on the 1st October 2018.
  
  Before the Polo is licensed for motorsport, the Polo GTI R5 will have completed around 10,000 test kilometres in total.
  
  In addition to the WRC2 category of the FIA World Rally Championship, the new customer racing rally car will also be in action in interregional championships such as FIA European Rally Championship and numerous national championships.
  
  Jan- Gerard de Jongh, technical project manager for the Polo GTI R5 and former race engineer of World Rally Champion Sébastien Ogier said “When defining the specification, we took great care to ensure that it would be easy for professional privateer teams to master the technical support of the Polo GTI R5.”
  
  Further test drives and the competitive debut are scheduled before the first customer cars can be delivered. At the Rally Spain from the 25th to 28th October 2018, the Polo R5 GTI will take on its rivals in the WRC2 class at world championship level for the first time. And for the Volkswagen Motorsport team, since they will be taking care of the car at the debut, it will be a mini comeback after the final race which took place in Australia in 2016.

  Sven Smeets says, “We will compete at the Rally Spain with two cars from our own team. The aim is to demonstrate the competiveness of the new Polo GTI R5 at the highest level and on different surfaces."