The Volkswagen brand racing project took 50 years to deliver a perfect answer

Recently, Volkswagen officially announced on its official website that it will completely terminate the Volkswagen brand’s racing program and focus all its efforts on the transformation to pure electric vehicles. The 169 employees of Volkswagen Motorsport GmbH, the company responsible for sports events, and all resources currently at its disposal, will be integrated into Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg in the next few months.

Dr. Frank Welsch, Member of the Board of Management responsible for Development, said: “The Volkswagen brand is becoming a leading provider of sustainable electric mobility. To this end, we are concentrating our efforts and have decided to discontinue the Volkswagen brand’s own racing cars. Activities. The deep technical expertise of the Racing staff and the know-how gained from the ID.R project will remain with the company and will help us build an even more effective model from ID." Achievements

Now open the official website of Volkswagen Motorsport GmbH, and its cover slogan is still a German "Mehr?als?50?Jahre?und?kein?bisschen?leise." Google Translate means "For more than 50 years, it has not been quiet at all." Indeed, the Volkswagen brand has not only been very successful in the history of motor sports, but also rich and colorful, and the motor sports events it has participated in are very diverse.

There is not only the Pikes Peak hill climb that all motorsport enthusiasts want to conquer, but also the Dakar Rally that constantly challenges the limits. Of course, the World Rally Championship also has its presence. The closest thing to us is the all-electric ID.R. In the "Race Night" competition on the eve of last year's Essen Motor Show, the ID.R won the most important "Electric Racing Car of the Year" award that night.

The Volkswagen brand has achieved outstanding results in more than 50 years of motor racing. It has been active in major racing events since the heyday of Formula V and Formula Three in the 1960s and 1970s. The first time I started paying attention to the Volkswagen brand's racing activities was in 2009. From 2009 to 2011, it was almost its personal performance time. The team won three consecutive championships in the Dakar Rally. Moreover, from 2013 to 2016, Volkswagen won the World Rally Championship four consecutive times with the Polo R WRC. In the TCR competition, the GOLF GTI took back the international championship for the Volkswagen brand in 2016 and 2017.

July 11, 1966

Formula V Europe eV association Volkswagen Motorsport was established

In 1990 Michael Schumacher with Volkswagen

Won the German Formula 3 Championship and the World Macau Final

In 2009 Volkswagen became the first winner of the Dakar Rally

The first to use diesel technology

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In 2015 Volkswagen won the World Rally Championship for the third time

No matter how good the ID.R is, it cannot escape termination

With the development of the all-electric ID.R, The Volkswagen brand's motorsport has successfully transitioned to electric vehicles since 2018. Development of the ID.R began at the end of 2017 and it already holds five international records. Frenchman Romain Dumas set the first record at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in Colorado, USA, in June 2018. Including later breaking the record for the fastest electric car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed ??and the fastest lap record for electric cars at the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

It is worth mentioning that ID.R has also left footprints in Tianmen Mountain, China. In September 2019, Romain Dumas completed the 99 turns on the Tianmen Mountain Highway in 7 minutes and 38 seconds, reaching the "Gate of Heaven" on the top of the mountain. Dumas, who set the new record, said: "This is my most spectacular outing, and it is a record on Tianmen Mountain forever. I am honored to set the record for the Volkswagen ID.R in China. We only had a small amount of information beforehand." The roads were extremely narrow and twisty, but the electric power of the ID.R. made it incredibly fun to drive."

As early as November 2019, Volkswagen revealed that its focus was shifting to the production of electric vehicles and that Volkswagen would terminate all racing projects that did not involve electric vehicles. Since that time, the Volkswagen brand's motorsport has come to an end, including the subsequent further development of the ID.R, just to better build momentum for the ID. family and decentralize racing technology.

The Audi brand, also a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, has previously stated that it will withdraw from the Formula E event after the end of the 2021 season and shift its focus to the 2022 Dakar Rally. Audi officials have also said: "Motorsport is an integral part of Audi's strategy. We hope to show ourselves in top international motorsport in the future and incorporate the latest electrification technology into our production cars." < /p>

It can be seen that the Volkswagen Group’s investment in motorsport will be limited to high-end brands such as Audi, and will no longer “burn money” to support Volkswagen brand motorsport. Since Mazda permanently shut down Mazdaspeed, Volkswagen Motorsport GmbH has become the second motorsport department to end this era. The reason for doing so is believed to be a decision made by the Volkswagen Group after careful consideration. But as for whether it will be restarted in the future, it depends on the future sales performance of the ID. family.

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This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.