The South African Rally Championship last season was upset by the arrival of an all-new rally machine, rocking the established Toyota and Volkswagen teams.
World Rally Championship drivers and a team of over 200 engineers at the Cumbrian-based head office in the U.K have developed the M-Sport-built Ford Fiesta S2000, and immediately on its international competition debut claimed an historic win at the 2010 Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) Rallye Monte Carlo. It has since notched up wins across the world, and also here in South Africa at the hands of Conrad Rautenbach.
Volkswagen and Toyota were left scratching their heads as to how to reel in the Ford of the Volkswagen Polo and Toyota RunX and now Auris are not running to the same high levels of technology as that of the Fiesta S2000.
Remember that Volkswagen South Africa and Toyota South Africa, in conjunction with the FIA, drew up the plans for
the S2000 formula, and were the first to build and compete with S2000s internationally. That was in 2004/2005, and since then the formula has moved in leaps and bounds.
As with the Ford Fiesta S2000, the Pirtek-sponsored Peugeot 207 S2000s of Hein Lategan and Visser du Plessis have created a stir in recent weeks in the South African rallying circles. This rally-winning machine made its debut in KwaZulu-Natal, but Visser du Plessis crashed and damaged his 207 S2000 in pre-event testing the day before the rally got underway and had no time to repair the extensive damage, while Lategan suffered electrical problems that left his car’s engine severely damaged after only one stage. These new cars are not to be underestimated!
Volkswagen’s mighty Polo, having won six consecutive national rally championship titles, and the equally illustrious Toyota RunX (and now the new generation Auris) follows in the same vein, and have fought bravely against the Fords in 2010.
A raft of updates, changes and technological marvels have now been imbibed onto the Volkswagen Polos and Toyota Auris to make them even more competitive in the growing threat that is Ford in South African rallying. For a
platform that is largely undeveloped for six years, the Polo and RunX/Auris have shown that our best motorsport
engineers locally produced brilliant machinery…
For 2011, Volkswagen and Toyota both effected changes to their rally cars. The Toyota now sports a brand-new suspension setup dripping with the latest and lightest parts the squad can get its hands on. After the first round in KwaZulu-Natal for the Total Tour Natal Rally, the factory Toyota Auris S2000s of Johnny Gemmell and Leeroy Poulter weren’t able to showcase these new changes to their cars as they were both beset with other minor problems and punctures, with only Gemmell finishing the event in a lowly tenth place overall. We can expect the Castrol Toyota Auris S2000 to be on top form on Round Two in Nelspruit in three weeks.
The BP Volkswagen Team has undertaken more changes to their car, and it will be debuting a new chassis based on the Skoda Fabia S2000 later this year. For this fi rst round of 2011 though, the Volkswagen Motorsport engineers busied themselves over the off-season by updating the Polo’s appearance to match it to the Polo Vivo road car, added more flare to the wheel arches and a few under-the-skin changes too. The updated car, from speaking to the four factory drivers in Class S2000, all praise the work carried out by the team and feel this package brings the BP Volkswagen team closer to the Ford Fiesta S2000 package in terms of pace. With a car that has been in competition for nearly six seasons, Volkswagen has ironed out any reliability issues with the car to offer their drivers the best possible ammunition when taking on their opposition.
Through three different corners analysed by HANDBRAKES & HAIRPINS at this past weekend’s Total Tour Natal
Rally, and taking fi ve competitors comprising of two Volkswagen Polo Vivo S2000s, a Ford Fiesta S2000, Toyota
RunX S2000 and a Toyota Auris S2000, we can state that the quickest cars over the three corners was: the Volkswagen Polo Vivo S2000 AND the Ford Fiesta S2000. The three drivers of these machines displayed different entry and exit approaches and speeds, but they reached the exit of the three corners at too-close-to-call-it times. Of the five cars used in this comparison, it was actually the Ford Fiesta driver who was only marginally quickest through these three different corners when the total times were added up. It must be restated that it was only marginally.
For the Toyota camp, HANDBRAKES & HAIRPINS feels it was sheer determination and commitment that saw the six-year old Toyota RunX pip the two-year old Auris S2000 in this comparison.
As can be evidenced by the final results of this event, the difference in times and speed through the corners is not only slight but it also proves that the drivers’ skill plays a large role in the outright performance of the machine.
Enzo Kuun is always blisteringly quick on the Sasol Rally, and with it being the “home” event for the Sasol Rally Team we can all expect an out-and out fight there and for the remainder of the season!
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