Although the current Golf 7 production car might already have been on the market for around 3 years, Volkswagen Motorsport has now released the first race car based on this generation Golf.
This new five-door racer has been developed in accordance with TCR (Touring car Racer International Series) regulations. The aim is to evaluate these cars for a potential customer racing programme from 2016 season onwards.
These cars will however start participating now until the end of this year’s season.
Volkswagen Motorsport Director Jost Capito had the following to say: “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. 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.”
As expected the Golf looks pure race car. According to VW the chassis is 40 centimetres wider than a standard production Golf, the huge rear wing adds downforce to balance the downforace at the front created by the splitter. Shod with 18-inch racing wheels, the car also features a safety cell and fuel tank in accordance with FIA regulations.
Developing 243 kW and 410 N.m from the 2,0-litre, four-cylinder engine (taken form the Golf R production car) and based on the MQG platform, Volkswagen’s aim has been to keep costs down as far as possible.
Dates for the remainder of the Touring car Racer International Series (TCR)
11–12/07/2015 Austria (Spielberg)
19–20/09/2015 Singapore
24–25/10/2015 Thailand (Buriram)
21–22/11/2015 Macau
