Volkswagen enters World Rallycross Championship with Marklund
Volkswagen Motorsport has joined forces with Swedish team Marklund Motorsport to contest the World Rallycross Championship
The reigning World Rally Championship manufacturers' champion's deal with Marklund makes VW the third manufacturer to support a World RX team, following Ford's partnership with OlsbergsMSE and Peugeot's with Hansen Motorsport.
"Rallycross is attracting ever-increasing levels of attention in Europe and overseas and is one of the fastest growing motorsport disciplines out there," said Volkswagen Motorsport director Jost Capito.
"The races are short and sweet, the cars are spectacular and look almost like factory models.
"Marklund Motorsport ranks among the most ambitious independent teams and has single-handedly developed the Polo for the 2014 FIA Rallycross World Championship."
Still relatively inexperienced compared to its rivals, Marklund developed the Polo in its first year in Supercar in 2013.
DTM star Mattias Ekstrom finished second in Sweden on a one-off appearance with the squad.
The team, which announced its 2014 line-up as Global RallyCross champion Topi Heikkinen and Anton Marklund last month, is building brand new VW Polo RX machines.
"Volkswagen's pedigree in motorsport is there for everyone to see, there is no better manufacturer for us to be partnered with than the current WRC champions," said Marklund Motorsport team principal Jan Marklund.
"We will continue the hard work we have put in so far this pre-season and with the support of Volkswagen we are very much looking forward to delivering results from the first race of the new season."
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments