I Would Definitely Say That This Is A World-Class Racecar

Sirish Vissa, head of motorsport, Volkswagen India, on the development of the new Ameo Cup car, and the future of their motorsport programme in India

 

 

On whether the Ameo Cup car was built with the 200+PS figure in mind

The TCR car was our benchmark. The aim was to ensure that if someone raced the Ameo Cup car, they’d be able to switch to the TCR [Touring Car Racer] car and feel comfortable. Even the Swedish Touring Car Championship has been adapted to meet TCR regulations. Now you have TCR series in South-East Asia, the Middle East and Europe. In the US, they are running a TCR class alongside the Pirelli World Challenge. TCR is as popular as F3 is in singleseaters. We wanted to make the gap much smaller between what we are doing and something bigger.

On the decision to use paddle shifts and the 1.8-litre engine from the GTI

When we made the change to MRF, we had a tyre that started behaving like a proper racecar tyre, instead of a road car tyre. So you could feel the G-forces building in the corners, you would know when the tyre was reaching its limits and when it was about to give up. So we got the tyres and the handling side of it was quite close to what it would be like in TCR car. The next step was the power and what we do in terms of the drivetrain.