Lift off the throttle mid-corner and the back steps out. Tap the brakes and the back steps out some more. Need even more yaw? There’s always the fly-off handbrake.
This Group N Volkswagen Polo 1.6 petrol is set up to go sideways with little provocation. The Reiger suspension up front is set a few clicks softer than the Reigers at the back. That way, this front-wheel-drive car’s front tyres have more bite (which it needs, to resist understeer) and the rear is livelier than a Lambo on Red Bull.
If you’re driving this Polo rally car the way it is supposed to be driven, you won’t need more than a quarter turn of the steering wheel for most turns; you steer on the throttle and the brakes – the brakes to set up the angle of attack for a corner (include a dab of handbrake for tighter corners), and the throttle to straighten out oversteer and pull you out of it.
Today, this car is running the standard ECU, and that means about 85bhp at the wheels versus the claimed 100bhp RaceDynamics competition ECU that it runs when it’s flying down a rally stage in anger. We’re not running that ECU today because it needs 97-octane to run properly, and Pune is out of 97.
Uday Singh
Dipan Sur
Glenn Noronha
