Now, that is my kind of celebration! It’s Volkswagen’s Motorsport India’s tenth 12 months of racing, and that they have each racecar they have got ever constructed lined up for us to the pattern at the MMRT in Chennai. Some are old favorites, just like the hyper Polo Cup automobile. Others are so sparkling from the manufacturing unit. We are not allowed to put our grubby fingers on them, just like the nutty mid-engined, rear-wheel-drive Polo RX, which is as precise an area as any to introduce VW’s motorsport department.
It failed to mobilize millions over the eighty years it’s been in manufacturing; the Beetle also gave the beginning to Volkswagen’s motorsport division! As the tale is going, an open-wheel racecar, made using elements from the rear-engined, rear-wheel force Beetle, was given so popular inside the US in the early 60s that VW engineers just had to retake a few to Europe to examine. The Formula Vee series helped extra than a handful of drivers cut their teeth on circuit racing, with its inexpensive price-of-access and walking. You may understand their names Niki Lauda, Keke Rosberg, and Emerson Fittipaldi, amongst others. It wasn’t long after VW opened the VW Junior Cup to drivers in Europe, with the identical fundamentals. A grid packed with low-cost manufacturing motors (the Scirocco, in this situation) gently modified to the identical level from the manufacturing unit to provide an even gambling area wherein driver talent could shine thru, and the auto’s capabilities. It’s a method it is so sensible; it’s remained the basis for grassroots motorsports internationally.
It changed into quite the assertion; while VW delivered their first small vehicle for India, the Polo, in 2010, they right away sent it racing! Enter the Polo Cup one-make championship. With cars developed in Germany and constructed at the VW Motorsport manufacturing unit in Chakan, it was the primary time a saloon racing championship changed into the use of vehicles that had been built at the same manufacturing unit, and the first time a racecar in India might be tanked up with diesel.
The 1.6-liter Polos had still been a pressure to be reckoned with, with their purposeful aero, Sachs race suspension, race brakes, and most significantly, information logging machine. For beginners and experienced drivers alike, they can tell precisely what they were doing within the automobile and at what factor at the song became a learning device that hadn’t been available in saloon vehicles, ever! It, in all likelihood, took visiting automobiles in India ahead, too, considering that JK Tyre evolved 17-inch race slicks for the Polos, which the Indian Touring Cars then switched to later. So the Polo Cup turned into a world-elegance racing revel in. And at about Rs 2.Five lakh for a racing season, plus the hazard to race abroad, it turned into great exposure for now not high-quality quantities of cash.
Driving it once more, some three years considering that I first sat in a single, the diesel Race Polo still offers me jitters, and it’s now not from sounding like a cement grinder. It’s the most effective one of VW Motorsport’s racecars not to have ABS. A fact I’m rudely reminded of, while a quick faucet of brakes to installation the auto right into a nook, instead sent the rear end sideways! What an energetic little vehicle this is around corners! It does experience almost painfully underpowered on the straights even though the low revving diesel would not help mid-corner. 2012 2014 Polo R Cup then, for the following new release some years later, VW Motorsport became the tempo up, to something toward global standards of visiting cars. Under the hood of the Polo R Cup automobile, it changed into basically the closing-gen Polo GTI with 180PS. A respectable wide variety for everybody from novices to pros. Though, inside the interest of creating it less complicated to power at the limit, a piece of the sharpness of the Polo was dialed out with the addition of a wing for greater balance, aside from different geometry modifications. The intention becomes lap times.
And, boy, does this automobile make chasing a lap less complicated. So simple, you could depart the DSG gearbox in its Sport mode and allow it to do all of the be just right for you! It does a good job, too. On simply two quick laps, I changed into capable of smooth up my entry into the long right at MMRT. Just due to the fact I wasn’t considering which gear I had to be in and will use that mind space as an alternative to recognition on getting the strains perfect. And that line of the idea is something VW Motorsport explored similarly with the Vento Cup automobile. 2015 2016 Vento Cup Sirish Vista, head of VW Motorsport, says that the choice was led by marketing since Vento changed into the newer model inside the VW India lineup. But it also gave the race engineers a better base to cope with many troubles with the Polo, particularly its twitchiness. Because with the longer wheelbase of the Vento, welded-in roll cage for the primary time, and KW suspension comes extra stability and rigidity. 2016 was also when the championship shifted to MRF as their tire supplier, and that in addition noticed lap times reduce down via a second or two, though the powertrain remained equal. It’s immediately obvious within the fast chicanes among corners three and four at MMRT.
This is where the fastest line is to stay flat out, thru the short route changes and over the curbs. It’s additionally wherein you’re pulling the best cornering g-forces. In the Polo I’d just stepped out of, it felt like a rollercoaster on the verge of flying off its tracks. The Race Vento feels like the song had just grown some toes in the width you do not even experience the curbs! This is good because it gives you the self-belief to push tougher. But at the identical time, some of the raw enchantment of an on-the-facet racecar had gone.
