VW ‘surprised’ by Citroen protests

The Acropolis Rally-winning Volkswagen team says it was ’surprised’ to hear that rivals Citroen had launched a series of protests on Sunday night alleging that the German squad had broken WRC rules.

The protests, which were all dismissed by the event stewards, concerned Volkwsagen’s practice of putting spare batteries on board its Polo World Rally Cars at overnight parc fermes, then removing them the following morning before leaving the Service Park.

Volkwagen claimed this had been common practice in the World Rally Championship ’for years’.

In a statement issued at 0146hrs on Monday morning, Volkswagen said the Citroën Total Abu Dhabi Team had first launched a protest against the classification of the three Polos driven by Latvala, Mikkelsen and Ogier, but that this protest had been rejected due to an error in the way it had been submitted.

The French manufacturer then filed a further two protests, one against Volkswagen Motorsport entries Ogier and Latvala and another against its second team driver Mikkelsen.

“These protests also exhibited mistakes in their content, but were accepted by the sports commissioners,” read the statement.

Both sides were summoned to a hearing of the stewards, chaired by former world champion co-driver Robert Reid.

After consultation, and hearing that Volkswagen had clarified its spare battery arrangements with the FIA technical delegate, the protests were dismissed as unsubstantiated.

Junior WRC Championship investigation

The stewards were also called upon to investigate the six Junior WRC Championship Ford Fiesta R2s that completed the rally.

The cars, which were all supplied by M-Sport, were found to be fitted with exhaust manifolds that did not conform to the car’s homologation papers.

An M-Sport representative blamed a component supplier for the batch of non-conforming parts.

The stewards decided to exclude the cars from all Acropolis Rally results except the Junior WRC classifications – meaning the championship standings were unaffected.

M-Sport has also been reported to the FIA for possible further action.