[WRC] News & Rumours (part V) 2017

[Mirek]

Totally agree on Porsche having a special status inside VW group, but that’s hardly the case for Skoda. It's pretty reasonable to believe that Skoda is now sharing R5 knowledge just like Seat did with TCR and it wouldn’t even be a total surprise to see an Ibiza R5 coming out after the Polo.

You did not get the point. Currently the whole VAG is driven by Porsche people. The process was accelerated by the dieselgate. Porsche now holds 52% of VAG and controls the most important decisive places in the management - Pötsch, chairman of the supervisory board, is Porsche man and Müller, CEO, is also Porsche man. Both replaced the old Piech's people in their role. As a result VAG is no longer driven by VW.

Aside of that Porsche thanks to the dieselgate took CEO post in Škoda from VW, i.e. simple logic tells me that Škoda probably lost a bit of its dependancy on VW. I don't say there is no sharing of technologies between Škoda and VW Motorspor departments. For sure there is but it's not on the level of rebranding or repacking a totally same car or even building it in the same facility by the same people (like PSA cars). Anyway only time will tell how it evolves.