Well, 1 min 11 sec quicker than FT Larsen in Fiesta, says something ... but not everything.
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Some extra info then: like Andre said, Pedro Meireles has always owned the cars he runs, althouhg he usually outsources other teams to service them during events or tests; through the last decade he has been among the CPR favourites, getting the title in 2014 with a Fabia S2000. This year he looked a bit less motivated than usual, but the Polo will certainly boost him up!
Paulo, the older brother, was a top national contender in the 90’s (vice-champ in 95), runing an ex-factory Golf Rallye and still was quite active in the mid 00’s on a Polo S1600. Last seasons he has only done a couple of events per year, most of the time runing rented cars (by Portuguese or spanish teams). With a Polo R5 at home, he may be tempted to do some events more!
Oliver Solbergs season with VW Polo R5 will start in "Rally Alūksne" (LAT, 18.-19.01.)
Some interesting news from PSA which may shed some light for the future of the R5 class.
The next 208 GTI is now confirmed to be full electric only, so will the next gen DS3/C3 Racing/performance hot hatch. So maybe this means the C3 wil stick around for a good few years. Renault on the other hand will use the 1.8 petrol engine with a mild hybrid configuration for the next Clio RS (they dont have much problems with the Co2 fleet emissions because of the ZOE), so will they finally make a R5 car?!
Is it known what the hot Opel Corsa will have? Maybe PSA will push Opel instead for R5. Wasn't there some article a while ago about PSA considering Opel for rallying post-2020?
Is it? The 208 EV expected in Geneva is a basic version based on the DS3 Crossback power train; for now this eGti talk (would it still be named Gti?) is just a rumour. Besides, there’s no sport version on the C3 range and that didn’t prevent PSA to make a WRC and a R5 car of it.
The new 208 will use a different platform (EMP1) than the C3, which may explain why they’ll take some time to get a 208 R5 replacement. Btw, this new EMP1 platform (also called CMP, allowing using petrol or electric engines) will also be taken by the Gen 6 Corsa, from 2020.