Volvo: No long-term commitment to motorsport

Volvo’s local V8 Supercars campaign may be over-achieving in its first year of competition but the brand’s global boss has sounded a warning regarding its long-term position in motorsport.

“In general, not really” was Volvo Cars Group CEO Hakan Samuelsson’s surprise answer to a direct question from motoring.com.au on whether Volvo had a long-term commitment to motorsport.

Samuelsson qualified his answer by saying “but we have a commitment in Australia which is running for some more years”.

The Swedish car-maker's CEO said he believed Volvo’s V8 Supercars tilt was positive for the brand, but was clearly unconvinced about the marque’s need to spend money on motorsport in other arenas.

“I think that [V8 Supercars] has given us a lot of goodwill in Australia and we plan to continue that. I have heard a lot of positives from Australia,” he told motoring.com.au.

But he warned: “In the long-term it [motorsport] will always be discussed very pragmatically. Is it giving us advantages?

“In the end, we do it if we think we can make money from selling more cars.”

Samuelsson said Volvo’s move to a four-cylinder future was at odds with V8 Supercars’ current engine technology.

“Long-term it’s not really the cars we will be producing so it’s on the negative list, but let’s now continue the contract we have,” he stated.

“Long-term it would be more interesting [to] maybe look into a hybrid formula. That’s open for discussion but there’s nothing I’ve heard about,” he said.

Volvo Cars Australia chief Matt Braid said at last weekend's V8 Supercars round that a decision about whether to add more than two cars in next year's championship will be made within eight weeks.