Volkswagen terminates its own motorsport programmes

As the Volkswagen group shifts its focus to sustainable mobility, it terminates all of its motorsport programmes.

Ever since the massive diesel gate scandal, Volkswagen has been on the path to righteousness with petrol-only new model line-ups and its industry-first twin-dosing SCR system for its future range of diesel cars. And now, it has taken yet another dramatic turn. Volkswagen has officially announced that it is terminating its motorsport programmes. As we all know, motorsport brings cutting edge technology, durability, safety, and performance to road cars, so the termination of VW’s motorsport activities will undoubtedly have some impact on its road cars in the future.

Volkswagen is now planning to shift its focus to the future by concentrating more on sustainable electric mobility. To this account, VW will absorb all of its 169 employees of Volkswagen Motorsport GmbH into Volkswagen AG.

'The Volkswagen brand is on the way to becoming the leading provider for sustainable e-mobility. To this end, we are pooling our strengths and have decided to terminate the Volkswagen brand’s own motorsport activities. The motorsport workforce will be integrated into Volkswagen AG. The deep technical expertise of the motorsport employees and the know-how gained from the ID.R project will remain with the company and will help us put further efficient models from the ID. family on the road', said Dr Frank Welsch, Member of the Board of Management with responsibility for the Development Division.

In 2019, Volkswagen had announced the end of factory support internationally for all of its racing programmes for internal combustion engines, including the ceasing of production of its Golf GTI TCR at the end of the calendar year.

In its latest statement, VW has stated that the long term supply of spare parts of the Polo GTI R5 and Golf GTI TCR for racing will continue and that the customer sport Polo GTI R5 for rallying will expire at the end of 2020.

We are still awaiting a statement from Volkswagen Motorsport India on the matter in regard to its operations in India.

Also read - Volkswagen Motorsport India enters ITC category in MRF INRC 2019

A look at Volkswagen Motorsport India's Customer Sport Programme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VktWVT35WkQ&feature=emb_logo