Volvo braces for impact

Volvo is steeling itself for the very public potential downsides of going V8 Supercar racing, but is hopeful that it can avoid many of the dramas that have beset the Nissan Motorsport and especially Erebus Mercedes-AMG teams in their rookie year.

And it is confident any crashes, blow-ups, DNFs or lack of pace as Volvo Polestar Racing develops its S60 racers in 2014 will be more than compensated for in the long run.

Hurried development programs and lack of horsepower have been a hindrance to both new teams against the established Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons.

The privateer Benzes have also struggled more notably for pace, while suffering a series of reliability issues in televised races mostly related to overheating.

Volvo Car Australia Managing Director Matt Braid admitted to motoring.com.au at yesterday’s announcement of the factory-backed V8 assault that there would be some negatives to going racing.

“Without doubt, going into this situation you could not expect not to see some form of exposure like that,” he said. “We are well aware that if we struggle then the whole world is going to see it.

“However, that is part of the game.

“We will have some pitfalls along the way I’m sure as well, technically and on the track, and we expect that.”

Despite the potential negatives, Braid was understandably bullish about the VCA’s multi-million multi-year commitment.

“S60 is a great opportunity for us in this market,” he said. “The knowledge of S60 in the greater community isn’t there, particularly amongst those with an enthusiast-type mindset.

“It is a very dynamic car, does the right things on the road, is very well equipped and well priced. We thought how can we best demonstrate this car better to the target audience?

“There’s no better platform to do that than through V8 Supercar racing.”

Braid revealed that VCA and its partners Polestar Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport had been paying much attention to the Nissan and Erebus experiences to try to learn from them.

“One advantage we have had over the other manufacturers is being able to watch them in the early stages and where possible we have been able to take some pointers and learn some lessons and say ‘OK, how do we adopt that and avoid that potentially happening to us’.”

While Braid was unwilling to detail just what those learnings might be, motoring.com.au understands that the development program for the S60 racers is months ahead of the equivalent Nissan Altima and Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG development timelines.

Polestar is already well advanced in developing a 5.0-litre racing version of Volvo’s B8444S 4.4-litre V8. At the same time GRM is heavily into the chassis build, body panel design and aerodynamic package development.

The first S60 racecar is scheduled to test in early December and the two-car Fujitsu- and Valvoline-backed team will race for the first time at the Clipsal 500 starting on February 27 next year.

Volvo Polestar Racing is also rated as the most complete structure of the three newcomers that have come into the sport so far, combining local expertise, factory money and in-depth factory technical know-how.

The Nissan operation misses out on significant technical support from Japan, while Erebus is a privateer effort that lacks any Mercedes-Benz funding or promotion.

Emphasising its commitment to the S60, VCA launched the limited-edition S60 Polestar on the same day as it announced its V8 Supercar program. Australia is the first market to get the car, with only 50 examples headed here priced just under $110,000.

Local reception of the S60 Polestar will play a big role in determining whether more hot-rod Volvo road cars are built. Next cab off the rank would most likely be a 250kW all-wheel drive V40, which is understood to be already partly developed but – hopefully only temporarily - on hold.

A facelifted S60 production car arrives in December. The racecar will share that car’s new front-end treatment shown in a teaser photo at yesterday’s launch.

So far in 2013, Australian S60 sales have dipped 25 per cent compared to 2012. Sales were also down 21 percent in 2012 compared to 2011.

Braid defended the logic of racing a V8 rear-wheel drive S60 when the production car has neither of those features and following Volvo’s announcement it is going all-four cylinder with its new VEA program .

“I don’t know one racing series in the world really that is tied purely to production cars these days,” he said. “I think everyone has moved on and it’s very hard to align with certain categories to a production vehicle.

“It is no different with V8 Supercars. A V8 engine is the ticket to entry in the category and we respect that and certainly understand that. We are proud we have a V8 that is Volvo DNA.

“Motor racing is all about marketing as well quite clearly. We want to show that we are competing on the track and competing in the marketplace. We have a strong program presenting and marketing the S60 in Australia and we think that will add to that.

“I don’t think an average person would look at a V8 Supercar today and correlate it technically exactly to a production vehicle. In our view it is more about their team is actually competing in the race rather than the car they drive on the street is literally going to be on the track in its configuration.”

Braid said going racing would help also dispel any lingering ‘Bloody Volvo driver’ negative imagery: “I think it already had changed before this announcement. I think this announcement and the action we will see next year on the track will actually help us further with that for sure.”

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