Volkswagen bow out of WRC on top

Volkswagen has ended its WRC involvement with a 1-2 finish to cap an incredibly successful stint on rallying’s biggest stage.

Those who like to keep their eyes trained on the future will look at the season-ending Rally Australia in a slightly different light. They will look at Thierry Neuville clinching the runner-up spot in the drivers’ championship behind Sebastien Ogier. They will see that Hyundai was by far and away the closest thing Volkswagen had to a competitor. They will look forward to the entry of Toyota to the WRC and the countless photos and YouTube videos of the 2017-spec cars being extensively tested.

However, those who live in the moment and like to take stock of the past will look at the very top of the overall standings of Rally Australia that will show Andreas Mikkelsen and Ogier taking a 1-2 for the departing Volkswagen Motorsport squad. The emotional finish capped off an incredible stint in WRC for the German squad that swept all before it with Ogier at the helm in the vacuum left by Sebastien Loeb’s partial retirement in 2013 and then being gone for good from 2014.

Four years, four drivers’ championships, four manufacturers’ championships and 43 wins out of the 52 WRC events held over that period. All that was going to be put on the line in 2017 when Citroen were coming back with a full factory effort after a gap of a year. Not to mention the preparation of the other squads.

But as we are living in the present, let’s instead focus on the battle the up and coming Mikkelsen had with Ogier to achieve victory. Two seconds was all that separated the Norwegian from Ogier going into the final day of the rally as the Frenchman slowly started to eat into that tiny margin.

It came to the point that with four stages left, just 0.3 seconds separated Ogier from Mikkelsen, which would surely not hold until the end. But a spin meant that with three stages left, Mikkelsen could take it a bit easy and nurse his car to the end of the rally. Even a brief challenge from Hayden Paddon fell by the wayside as the New Zealander hit a dirt bank that dropped him to fourth place.

Dani Sordo finished fifth to make a 3-4-5 finish for Hyundai who were the first in line to pay tribute to VW’s incredible run of success.

Although going back to looking at the future, it is worth speculating what will become of VW’s heavy hitting driver line up of Ogier, Mikkelsen and Jari-Matti Latvala. Who will snap them up ahead of the 2017 WRC season and where might places be available with teams already so deep into development with their new machines? Onwards to 2017 to find out. VW had a great run but time and the WRC waits for no one as it keeps slipping to the future. Fortunately, we don’t have too long to wait.