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The Volkswagen Polo R-Cup India 2014 came to an exciting and dramatic end on the weekend of 13-14 December, with Karthik Tharani crowned this season’s champion. The 20 year-old student took the spoils at the Formula 1 Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida, ahead of Karminder Pal Singh who led the driver rankings before the championship finale.

Tharani was 70 points behind Singh at the start of the last round, but narrowed the gap between his compatriot, thanks to two race wins by the end of day one. Going into day two, Singh was leading by only 33 points. Race finishing positions of third, fourth and seventh were not enough for him to keep his championship lead.

Indian national karting champion Ameya Bafna triumphed in the second and third races ahead of Tharani, but was ineligible for points. Tharani therefore collected the full set of points for the victory as he came home in second place, helping him overturn Singh in the driver rankings.

As is usual in Polo racing, the last round of the Volkswagen Polo R-Cup India 2014 championship wasn’t without on-track drama. In race one, Anshul Shah lost control and rolled his car on the very first corner. Race two saw all the racing Polos switch to wet tyres to deal with the drizzly conditions.

Tharani went into a wet race three in pole position, but soon lost the lead to Lee Keshav. Tharani overcame Keshav, though, to clinch back the lead with Bafna following close behind at the head of the chasing pack. As the pair headed into turn three on the last lap, they were side-by-side with Bafna taking the inside line. Tharani ultimately lost the lead, but his job was done and the championship title was his.

Head of Volkswagen Motorsport India, Sirish Vissa, said: ‘Karthik has shown excellent pace throughout the season and this weekend was just perfect for him. With 180 points scored in the three races of Round 4, he has proved to be the best of the lot and rightfully deserves to be the champion.’

Tharani meanwhile was pleased with his result: ‘I came to the last round of the season determined to put up the best show and with a win and a second place yesterday, I was even more motivated for today’s race. Ameya and I had a good battle on the last lap but he proved to be the better one.

‘Nonetheless, I was happy to earn the most important points which helped me lift the championship today. I would like to thank Volkswagen Motorsport India for giving us all a truly international racing platform and developing us throughout the season.’

Volkswagen Motorsport India runs the Volkswagen Polo R-Cup India 2014 series in conjunction with JK Tyres. The field of young largely Indian racers drive identical and centrally-prepared 1.4-litre TSI-engined, 178bhp Polo R-Cup cars.

JK TYRE VOLKSWAGEN POLO R-CUP INDIA 2014,

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
1 Karthik Tharani, 358
2 Karminder Pal Singh, 347
3 = Bonnie Thomas, 296
3 = Anindith Reddy, 296

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The Polo R WRC may have finished competitive duties for 2014, but a series of promotional activities has ensured Volkswagen’s World Rally Championship-winning car has remained in the public’s consciousness, no doubt increasing the visibility of the VW brand.

‘Wetten, dass..?’ parkhaus challenge
Last weekend, more than nine million viewers of German TV show ‘Wetten, dass..?’ (‘You Bet’) watched the reigning World Rally Champion Sébastien Ogier compete against a climber in a timed ascent and descent of a multi-storey car park or ‘parkhaus’.

TV channel ZDF said goodbye to the long-running programme in some style as Ogier’s 300bhp Polo R WRC blared, slid, and slithered up and down the car park’s damp access ramps and rooftop.

Jakob Vöckler challenged Ogier to the duel, claiming he could climb up and down the exterior of the car park faster than the Frenchman who was driving his rally Polo inside the building.

The climber from Munich was faster in the end, Ogier not quite being able to guide the Polo through the serpentine car park fast enough. ‘Congratulations to Jakob. It was something new driving through a multi-storey car park to win a bet and was enormous fun,’ commented the Volkswagen driver.

Barcelona taxi ride

Ogier has been busy showing of the rally Polo in the mountains above Montserrat in Barcelona, too. Brazilian striker Neymar Jr, of FC Barcelona football club donned VW Motorsport overalls to be co-driver for the French rally driver.

Or at least that was the plan. Ogier’s extreme driving style quickly rendered him useless. Seeing the football player is unable to cope, Ogier instructs him to lose his ‘pace notes’ and ‘Just sit back and enjoy the ride’.

Unashamedly a promotional video for one of Volkwagen’s motorsport partners, Red Bull, it does show the Polo R WRC to dramatic and aggressive effect.

Award ceremonies

The Polo R WRC has also been to International Automobile Federation (FIA) Prize-Giving Gala in Doha where Volkswagen was presented with the trophies for the 2014 Manufacturer, Driver and Co-Driver titles in the FIA World Rally Championship.

The car and Sébastien Ogier were also among the prizewinners at the 2014 Autosport Awards in London. Readers of the UK magazine voted the Polo R WRC the ‘Rally Car of the Year’, while Ogier won the ‘International Rally Driver of the Year’ title.

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The 2014 FIA World Rallycross Championship may be over, but the Volkswagen Polo RXs of Marklund Motorsport were in action over the weekend of 13-14 December at the annual Race of Champions.

The Carribean island of Barbados was the venue for the 2014 event which sees motorsport legends compete each other and teamed up with fellow drivers from the same country to fight the Nations Cup.

The 600bhp Polo RXs were piloted by motorsport stars such as nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, 2014 FIA World Rallycross Championship winner Petter Solberg, and overall victor F1’s David Coulthard. Duels were fought around a parallel course at Bushy Park.

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It was an exciting end to an, at times, difficult season for Volkswagen Motorsport South Africa, as Han Weijs Jnr and Björn Degandt took victory in their Volkswagen Sasolracing Polo S2000 at the Bela-Bela Motor Rally on 22 November. The Bela-Bela was the final round in the 2014 South African National Rally Championship.

The result places the duo second overall in the 2014 championship standings. The Bela-Bela Rally is the fifth occasion during the eight-round 2014 national championship that Weijs and Degandt have finished on the podium. The season finale is their best result this year.

‘I like technical stages and we were involved in a good fight at this event,’ said Weijs. ‘This was a good rally for us. We pushed hard but it was very important to finish here in Bela-Bela, in order to claim second overall in the championship. We had to pace ourselves very carefully and keep the overall goal in mind.’

Weijs and Degant’s team-mates Henk Lategan and Barry White brought their Polo home fourth, while Gugu Zulu and Carl Peskin rounded out the top five finishers. Zulu and Peskin are fifth in the championship standings while Lategan and White are one place below.

Lategan and White had to deal with a number of difficulties but managed to eventually overcome them. ‘We had some technical niggles throughout this event,’ Lategan commented. ‘ But despite the problems, the results for the team are a morale booster and we produced a good result, a strong end to the season and one we can be happy with.’

‘The 2014 season has been a real challenge for us, we’ve had to work hard to stay in the fight,’ reflected Zulu. ‘We started this event well but the very loose surfaces here gave us some trouble, which saw us lose time against our rivals.

‘Carl and I did post good stage results, within seconds of the other teams, but overall our time deficit cost us what could have been an even better result. A strong finish at this event – and for the season – means we start 2015 on a positive note and ready for the challenge.’

Mike Rowe, Head of Volkswagen Motorsport South Africa praised his squad: ‘This is a fitting end to the season for the Volkswagen Sasolracing team. It has been a fight for the Polos out on the stages at this event, trading stage times with our competitors, at our most competitive level.

‘We will be looking to starting the 2015 season on the same note. We have overcome a number of challenges this year,’ Rowe continued. ‘There is much work still to do, but we will be coming out strong for our 2015 campaign with the results achieved now forming a strong foundation for next season.’

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Volkswagen Motorsport ended its record-breaking World Rally Championship (WRC) season with a win at Wales Rally GB from 13-16 November. Once again Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia took the spoils, slipping and sliding their Polo R WRC to finish first ahead of Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen, and Citroën’s Mads Østberg and Jonas Andersson.

The #2 Polo R WRC of Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila came home eighth, a good result after the pair suffered a number of setbacks in north Wales. The British event proved eventful for Andreas Mikkelsen and Ola Fløene, too. A handful of early stage wins and four second places on day two were offset by crashes on both day one and day three.

Eighth victory for Ogier
Ogier and Ingrassia’s victory was their eighth of the 2014 season, and it added to Volkswagen Motorsport’s record number of victories in one year tally – the German outfit scored a total of 12 (out of 13 events) during 2014. With the World Champion* and Manufacturers’* titles already in the bag, the pressure was off Ogier, but he still drove like it mattered.

Ogier and Ingrassia shot ahead into a commanding lead of over a minute on day one of Wales Rally GB and then paced themselves on the following two days, barely putting a foot wrong. The usual deadly mixture of fog and wet, muddy conditions were omnipresent on the 305.64 kilometres of Welsh forest gravel stages, but Ogier almost literally sailed through it all.

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