2015 Volkswagen Vento R Racecar First Drive Review

Beep beep went my phone one lazy afternoon. Sigh! Another email about a pointless social media update or ecommerce website special offer I assume. But it wasn’t. What it was, was an invite to spend a whole day at the Kari Motor Speedway in Coimbatore with a car that I have been looking forward to drive for a while now. No, it isn’t some 600PS European supercar that costs an arm, a leg and both your kidneys, it is something more extreme than that. I was about to go spend a day driving the all-new 2015 Volkswagen Vento R Cup racecar.

Luckily, I have spent a ton of time behind the wheel of Volkswagen’s racecars to know how much of an improvement the new car really is. My tryst with the R Cup racecars started off with the original TDI diesel powered cars, which in my opinion were absolute and thoroughbred beasts. In fact, Volkswagen even gave us the chance to race these awesome machines at an exclusive media race at the Buddh International Circuit. And it was there on the sidelines that I first drove the first generation Vento R racecars, which at the time were very tame, quiet and easy cars to drive.

Fast forward to the present though, the new generation Vento R racecar is nothing like it used to be. Well, it may look similar on the outside as your bog standard Vento street car, but underneath its skin, it is an absolute and certified monster. Lets start with the specifications then. The new Vento R gets a 1.4-litre engine that has both a turbocharger and a supercharger to make power delivery almost instant. And it does have power. A LOT of power. 180PS at a tasty 6200Rpm. And it weighs only 1225kg. Combine all of that with 250Nm of torque and you begin to see the picture.

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Stomp on the throttle in one of these and the 6-speed sequential gearbox that comes with a set of paddle shifters will launch you faster than most sportscars! What really makes the new Vento R awesome though is its brand new free flow exhaust system. In fact, after much criticism for its older Vento R being too quiet, Volkswagen went all out to install an exhaust system that is essentially a straight pipe with a single resonator. And boy does it sound good. In fact, this is definitely the best sounding Volkswagen racecar that we have driven in India so far. On the insides, the essentials continue. A FIA spec rollcage combined with a OMP race seat and a full onboard diagnostics system.

But the real sweet spot is when you chuck it into a corner. The 2015 Vento R racecar is a little softer than the older Polo used to be. On a bumpy track like Kari where huge kerbs and undulations can break both your back and your car, the softer setup is certainly going to be a lot faster than the older cars. The Vento is also much more stable than the edgy Polo mainly due to the fact that it has a slightly longer wheelbase. The Vento also comes with HUGE brakes from the Seat Sport division and a race-spec ABS setup that lets you brake into a corner much much later than the Polo ever let you. And to sum it all up, the sedan body style also seems to help in the straights due to a higher degree of aerodynamic efficiency. Of course, you do have the slick tyres that have been mounted on 17-inch race wheels to rely on to give you a never-ending supply of grip.

There is no doubt in my mind when I say that the new 2015 Volkswagen Vento R Cup racecar is the best track car from Volkswagen in India yet. Although the earlier Polo R cup cars were a lot more difficult to drive and honed the skills of young drivers to a certain degree, the new Vento does bring a lot of technology that is being used in international arenas to India. And for this, the new Vento R racecars are even better than their older counterparts.