Volkswagen kills all motorsport activities and axes ID.R

Volkswagen has announced the shock news it is shuttering all its motorsport activities – including its advanced pure-electric ID.R race car program – in a bid to refocus on rolling out more pure-electric vehicles.

As part of a radical overhaul, Volkswagen Motorsport's 169 employees in Hanover will be moved to the car-making giant's other operations at its Wolfsburg HQ in the next few months.

The news that Volkswagen is pulling the plug on racing is in stark contrast to an announcement last year that VW's motorsport division would switch to solely developing pure-electric racing cars.

As well as the ID.R, other victims of the surprise motorsport cull include the Volkswagen Polo GTI R5 rally car and the Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR touring car program.

Volkswagen Motorsport says production of the latter will end as soon as this month, but assures its customer race teams that the long-term supply of spare parts for both the TCR and rally car is secure for the future.

Pulling the plug on its involvement in racing will bring an end to five decades of motorsport participation that has seen the brand rack up WRC titles, World Rallycross championship titles, two TCT touring car titles and three Dakar Rally wins.

The ID.R electric race car, meanwhile, has also been a compelling advert for racing EVs, nabbing the overall record for the Pikes Peak hill-climb and setting a new electric car lap record at the Nurburgring Nordschleife.

The development of the even faster second-generation ID.R is now expected to be abandoned.

The shock announcement by Volkswagen comes just a day after sister brand Audi announced that it was leaving Formula E to compete in the Dakar Rally and the new Le Mans Daytona Hybrid class of the World Endurance Championship.