Astron Energy named as title sponsor of the 2024 Volkswagen Polo Cup
A springboard for young racing driver talent in South Africa, the Volkswagen Polo Cup has a new sponsor for 2024. Volkswagen Motorsport South Africa is partnering with Astron Energy who becomes the title sponsor for the upcoming season. The 2024 Astron Energy Polo Cup runs as part of the South African National Championship Extreme Festival over seven rounds across the country, and marks the one-make racing series’ 28th year of competition.
Excellent platform
With a network of 850 service stations being rebranded over the next four years, Astron Energy is a leading supplier of petroleum products in South Africa. The field of Polo GTI and Polo GTC SupaCup racing cars will use the company’s Quartech fuel, which has claimed friction reduction properties to help deliver improved protection against damage from combustion. Astron Energy sees the young racing drivers’ championship as an excellent platform to promote its reimagined fuel brand.
‘We are delighted to confirm our partnership with Volkswagen Motorsport as the title sponsor for the 2024 Astron Energy Polo Cup,’ said Astron Energy head of marketing, Thayuri Moodley. ‘The MSA South African National Championship Polo Cup has discovered some of South Africa’s most exciting racing talents over the years, with past champions Sheldon and Kelvin van der Linde, Jordan Pepper, and Leyton Fourie among others, going on to great things in local and international motorsport. Astron Energy looks forward to being an integral part of the next chapter of the thrilling Polo Cup story,’ continues Moodley.
‘Great impetus’
‘As Volkswagen Motorsport, we are delighted to welcome Astron Energy aboard as our Polo Cup title sponsor from 2024,’ said Head of Volkswagen Driving Experience, Mike Rowe. ‘Not only will Astron Energy bring great impetus to the Volkswagen Polo Cup, but we look forward to proving Astron Energy’s new premium additive Quartech Petrol in our field of Polo GTI Cup racing cars in action on track,’ Rowe continues.
The series gets underway on 15 March at Killarney in Cape Town, and the winner of the 2024 Astron Energy Polo Cup champion will earn a drive in a Polo GTC SupaCup racer in the 2025 GTC SupaCup championship.
Alongside the series production-based Polo GTI Cup racers, the Polo GTC SupaCup competes in the exclusive-to-South Africa GTC (Global Touring Car) Championship in the SupaCup class. Devoted to more production-biased machines, as opposed to the ‘silhouette’-type racers of the top-level GTC class – in which Volkswagen Motorsport South Africa fields a Golf 8 GTI GTC – the Polo GTC SupaCup still has almost 300bhp, and wears a square-arched body kit, echoing that of the Polo GTI R5 rally car.
