MOTORSPORT: VW's WRC team 'safe' from Dieselgate

Volkswagen’s participation in the World Rally Championship is not in jeopardy from the huge payout the company faces over its emissions scandal, VW team principal Jost Capito says.

VW continued its dominance of the sport at the weekend during the WRC round on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, where Capito said: “The Volkswagen WRC team could not have been more successful, winning three back-to-back world championships.

“We have a green light for the project up to and including 2019 and are working hard to ensure we remain as successful as possible on the sporting front.”

It wasn’t triple world champion Frenchman Sebastien Ogier victorious for VW at Rally France on Corsica but rather his Finnish teammate Jari-Matti Latvala, with Norwegean Andreas Mikkelsen third in another Polo R run by the second VW team.

Welsh driver Elfyn Evans notched the best result of his career, sandwiched between those VWs – 43.1 seconds behind Latvala but only 3.2 seconds ahead of Mikkelsen.

M-Sport team principal Malcolm Wilson said of his outfit’s best result of the season: “That was an absolutely stunning drive from Elfyn … it puts us right back in the fight for second place in the manufacturers’ championship (14 points behind Citroen and 13 behind Hyundai, with only the rallies in Spain and Britain remaining).”

Ogier was in the wars early on, a puncture costing him a minute and 40 seconds on day one and then a gearbox problem.

A 10-minute penalty for not completing that leg dropped Ogier from 10th to 55th place.

However, he won the final power stage ahead of ex-F1 driver Robert Kubica in a Ford Fiesta RS and wound up 15th.

It became the shortest rally in WRC history at just 245.35km after two of the nine long stages on the island’s narrow and twisty roads were cancelled because of the torrential rain and landslides.

Capito said the weather was the worst experienced during a WRC event for years and made the return of Rally France to Corsica “nerve-wracking”.

It was Latvala’s third win of the season, after Portugal and Finland, and the second of his career on asphalt.

Evans was the early pacesetter in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta RS and held the lead on the first night from Hyundai’s young Dutchman Kevin Abbring, who was to crash out on Sunday’s penultimate stage.

New Zealander Hayden Paddon again was the highest-placed Hyundai finisher with another fifth place, 20 seconds behind the Citroen DS3 of Ulsterman Kris Meeke.

Solberg did not make the final of the Turkish round in Istanbul at the weekend after his Citroen broke a driveshaft in the semi-finals.

Hansen won in a Peugeot by 0.03 seconds from the Ford of Swede Andreas Bukkerud, with another Swede, Johan Kristoffersson third in a VW.

Mattias Ekstrom, another Swede who was a star of the Bathurst 1000 two years ago and has won Germany’s DTM touring car title twice, was the top qualifier in Istanbul but finished fourth in the final.

Frenchman Davey Jeanney’s fifth place extended Team Peugeot-Hansen’s lead in the teams’ championship.

The remaining rounds are in Italy in a fortnight and then the final in Argentina, with Solberg admitting “the pressure is really on” him to retain his inaugural World RX crown.

In the Barbados round of America’s Global Rallycross the Andretti VW team notched its fourth straight race victory, with Tanner Foust successful in the latest two.

Foust’s teammate, former F1 racer Scott Speed, was second both times in Barbados – the first time after Swede Patrik Sandell was disqualified for knocking off his left front wheel.

The Andretti pair are now the only contenders for the championship at the final round in Las Vegas on November 4, with Speed the leader.

Ken Block, a championship contender before the weekend, spectacularly rolled his Ford Fiesta on the course’s jump during the first day’s competition in Barbados.

Austin Cindric, the teenage son of Roger Penske’s lieutenant Tim Cindric and who raced in this year’s Bathurst 12-Hour, won Sunday’s Lites class on the Caribbean island in an Olsbergs MSE Ford.