Volkswagen Motorsports - Back with a bang for 2019

By Lawrence Minnie

Kicking off the 2019 Motorsports season in style! VW invited racing legends and young rising stars to an unveiling event and had a few interesting announcements to make. 

Big announcements for the 2019 season

Volkswagen South Africa, who has always been a favourite amongst local motorsports fans, looks to 2019 to further strengthen its position as the number one brand in local motorsports competition.

VW kicked things off for 2019 with an evening social at the first round of The Passion for Speed weekend at ZwartKops Raceway. With a number of important local talent and a small media contingent, VW made a few surprise announcements as they introduced us to the new driver line up for this season.

 “We had an incredible year in 2018 and 2019 promises to be even better year,” commented Mike Rowe, Head of Volkswagen Motorsport. “This is mainly due to important developments that will collectively assist in creating excitement for motorsport fans across the country, ensure the sustainability of motorsport and especially circuit racing going forward. Most importantly for us as a factory team, to earn us a few more championships in the respective series in which we compete.”

New Sponsor

VW Motorsports made the surprise announcement that Falken Tyre would now be the headline sponsor for the Polo Cup series. This represents a much-needed financial injection into the series and a huge potential reward at the end of the season for the winning drivers. 

Universal Healthcare has now also jumped from not only fielding a team of cars but will now also come on board as a sponsor with long-standing brands such as Engen and Ferodo.

VW Motorsports Academy

VW announced that local legend, Michael Stephens, had joined the team to work with the drivers to develop an international level of competition. In other news, an announcement was made regarding the driver training academy and the driver search. 

Stephens will work directly with all students who sign up for the driver academy and anyone signed up for the academy stands a chance to be selected for the VW drivers search, no limitations, any race, colour or creed will be welcome and finalists will be selected on raw talent.

The Academy courses will take place on 27-29 March and 25-27 June at Zwartkops with a third date for September still in the works and will be announced in time. Cost of the course is R7500 incl.

Team VW line up announced

As well as administering the Polo Cup series, VW will also field its own racing team with drivers Jonathan Mogotzi and Raiis Ismail.

Moving onto the GTC series, VW will field four cars, two in GTC2 and two in the main category of GTC.

Bradley Liebenberg and Adrian Wood will campaign two GTI’s in GTC while Keegan Masters and Daniel Rowe will pilot the Jetta’s in GTC.

2019 promises to be a big year for South African motorsports and exciting times lay ahead for VW and its teams.