VW aims to put Germany back on the WRC map

Volkswagen Motorsport boss Kris Nissen is aiming for his company’s World Rally Championship programme to unearth ’the next Walter Rohrl’.

With the exception of Armin Schwarz, whose sole win at world level was in Catalunya in 1991, Germany has not had a top-line driver since Rohrl, who claimed the world championship in 1980 and 1982, along with 14 world rally victories.

Now though, Nissen believes that Volkswagen’s arrival could be the catalyst that Germany needs to return to the very top level of the WRC for drivers.

“It would be great if we had a new Walter Rohrl in Germany,” said Dane Nissen. But he added: “While that would no doubt be helpful to us and to the WRC the drivers’ skills are more important to us than their nationalities. In this area we will no doubt be taking a decision within the next 20 months.”

One driver who has been linked to a potential Volkswagen seat in Hermann Gassner Jr, who enjoys the added advantage of backing from Austrian energy drink giant Red Bull. Gassner Jr is 22 years old and won the 2009 German championship. This year he is contesting the Super 2000 World Rally Championship at the wheel of a Skoda Fabia S2000 - the car with which the Volkswagen Group will begin to build up WRC experience this year - run by multiple Austrian champion Raimund Baumschlager.

“I think Hermann is a big talent,” said Baumschlager. “Yet the direction his future career takes depends very much on the training he receives. So far, he is on the right road but there are no guarantees in the future.”

Nissen underlined: “At the moment we do not have a driver line-up. There is no reason to hurry because we are at a very early stage of our rally commitment. We are taking the time to carefully look at the market.”