Hi, friends!
It's still unknown if the car is already homologated or not. They said that homologation process should start at 1st of October but nothing official came to the press. I would say that it won't be problems about this because Germans always do this kind of the things properly.
The car will be in R5 model ran in WRC 2 class which has very strong opponents like Škoda Fabia R5 or Ford Fiesta R5. There are some other manufacturers and models around with the same R5 category but without tat kind of success as Škoda's or Ford's. This two brands really conquered world with their speed and reliability on all kind of surfaces – gravel, tarmac or snow.
Volkswagen is coming on a very competitive soil where they don't have much space for errors. Hyundai revealed their i20 R5 model but they don't have success with it and the car is really expensive to run.
Hyundai car can't win anything on the iternational level. It's just something missing. Car is not quick enough. It's not about the reliability because they don't retire often, it's just that pure speed is missing around. I don't know how will they sort this problem. The newest R5 competitor (before Volkswagen) is Citroen which homologated their car in March just before Rally Corsica. Some papers were missing so they sent a choper to fly it directly to the rally at Corsica. Everything went will with the homologation process but their car can't compete with the works Škodas and Fords, especially on the gravel.
This weekend we saw at Wales Rally the pure domination of Škoda cars with first and 2nd Rovanpera and Tidemand, and then Ford Fiesta R5 of Greensmith who finished 3rd. The other brands are even worse.
Camilli, who will be an official pilot of VW Polo R5 in Catalunya, drove for M-Sport Ford his weekend but finished only 10th in the WRC2 class, and 24th overall. He retired at some point in the rally and had to continue next day under Rally2 rules. Maybe the Ford Fiesta R5, which is the oldest machine in the R5 market, is not that competitive anymore for this.
That's why Volkswagen decided to bring their RallyX pilot and ex-WRC champion Petter Solberg in the team who will drive the 2nd works car in Catalunya.
Camilli and Solberg are really strong combo and we could see for real if their car is strong and quick enough for wealthy R5 market. Just to remind you that R5 cars cost around 250k-300k€ (new).
They tested the car in an oficial colours of the brand.
Credit for photos to CANRALLY and youtubers.
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