Volkswagen Motorsport’s all-new TCR-specifiation Golf had a successful debut at round eight of the championship. Based on the seventh-generation Golf, the car took victory in the weekend’s second race. Volkswagen’s intention with the car is to contest the remainder of the TCR season, to help evaluate a potential customer racing programme from the 2016 season onwards. As a cooperation partner to Volkswagen, the Liqui Moly Team Engstler ran two cars at the Austrian round, and will take responsibility for running the car during the remaining test phase.
“The newly created TCR category provides a promising platform for customer racing – on a national and international level. With exciting races, production-based technology and reasonable costs, it offers a new outlook for private racing teams,” said Volkswagen motorsport director Jost Capito. “When developing the Golf-based concept car, we are able to fall back on the resources at Volkswagen. This reduces both development time and costs. We will also use the rest of the season to test the car under competitive conditions and evaluate a possible customer racing project from 2016.”
Volkswagen Motorsport developed the car in cooperation with the sport department at SEAT, which sees it use a number of race proven parts from Seat’s Leon Cup. The Golf is powered by the same production-based, 2.0-litre turbo engine, which produces 330 PS and 410 Nm of torque in race trim and is transferred through a DSG dual-clutch gearbox.
“We are delighted about the victory for the new Golf. You cannot ask for much more from a racing car’s debut,” added Capito. “At the same time, we are well aware that we still have plenty of work ahead of us. The project is still in its very early stages. However, this success will give everyone involved an extra boost.”
