Has Prodrive Chairman Dave Richards spoiled Volkswagen’s party by announcing the German marque’s forthcoming entry to the WRC? In a recent interview at Autosport International Richards claimed, “It’s very clear that Volkswagen are about to announce their return to the World Rally Championship, as well; under the Volkswagen brand rather than Skoda.”
Serious rumours about VW joining the new WRC party emerged last August when Rally Germany was used as the launch event for the Race Touareg 3, which just filled the podium at Dakar 2011. At the same event the course car was biogas powered Scirocco (pictured above). A Scirocco WRC would be a welcome sight in world rallying, let’s hope that’s the model they choose.
If we assume Volkswagen do sign up to the WRC, possibly from the 2012 season, they will join fellow newcomers MINI, along with established players in Citroën and Ford. Richards says it might be hard to attract more factory support, “Quite frankly, it’s difficult to attract many more. There’s not enough prizes to go around.”
2 replies on “Volkswagen confirmed for WRC in 2012?”
So do Skoda just get sent to the scrapheap?
[…] will run a reduced program in 2012 before tackling the full WRC calender in 2013. Indeed, earlier this year, it was Prodrive chairman Davie Richards who gave us the biggest hint yet that VW were serious […]