Volkswagen Officially Announces Departure From World Rally Championship

Volkswagen Group has announced its exit from the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) at the end of the current season. The team had won all four championships ever since they participated in the sport as a full time manufacturer team in 2013 The automaker will instead focus on developing the Polo R5 car for customer use, VW said in a statement. This is yet another casualty of the dieselgate scandal that the company was embroiled in.

A move that has been met with much disappointment across the globe, Volkswagen confirmed its withdrawal from the sport late Wednesday, 24 hours after the decision was made at a board meeting. This is the company's second such withdrawal from motorsport after group company Audi AG announced its exit from World Endurance Championship last week, after being at the pinnacle of the sport for years now. Porsche instead, will represent the VW Group in World Endurance.

(Volkswagen Motorsport quits WRC)

Frank Welch, a Member of theVolkswagen Board of Management involved in Technical Development said, "The Volkswagen brand is facing enormous challenges. With the upcoming expansion in electrification of our vehicle range we must focus all our efforts on important future technologies. We far exceeded our sporting goals in the WRC, now we are realigning Volkswagen Motorsport and moving the vehicle technology of the future more starkly into focus.

Clearly, a move to curtail costs after being hit by the massive dieselgate scandal, the company is focusing its synergies towards electrification of cars and even showed interest in joining the all-electric and much Formula E sporting event.

As for the Volkswagen WRC team, the German auto giant has said that the 200 member team will be moved to new roles. The company is going to focus more on customer racing and will start development of a new car based on the next-generation Polo that will be eligible for the WRC 2 category and will be available for customers to buy from 2018.

(Volkswagen Motorsport quits WRC)

The Volkswagen factory team, with drivers Jari-Matti Latvala, Andreas Mikkelsen and Sébastien Ogier participated in a total of 51 WRC rallies, winning 42 events and setting 621 fastest stage times. Ogier won his fourth consecutive driver's championship title last month in Spain. Team director Sven Smeets, who replaced Jost Capito in September, will oversee the team's final appearance at Kennards Hire Rally Australia (November 17 - 20).

Furthermore, Volkswagen announced that it is going to focus more on customer racing. The Golf GTI TCR on the circuit track and the Beetle GRC in rallycross series will continue to exist.