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Geoffrey Harris17 Dec 2014
NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Volvo wants out of racing

Change of direction clouds Volvo's future in V8 Supercars as global marketing director says motorsport 'does not conform with our brand'

Just days after the conclusion of Volvo’s debut season in the V8 Supercar Championship, in which it won four races, the marketing boss of Volvo Cars at its Swedish headquarters wants to take the company out of motorsport.

“Motorsport does not conform with our brand, where we stand for smaller engines and safety,” said Alain Visser, the Belgian who has been marketing director of Volvo Cars for less than six months, in unveiling a new global sales strategy.

It will mean withdrawal from the Swedish Touring Car Championship (STCC) — which the company has won the past two seasons -- after next year.

Volvo Car Australia’s deal with Garry Rogers Motorsport in V8 Supercars is until the end of 2016, and Kevin McCann — who recently succeeded Matt Braid as the Swedish manufacturer’s Australian managing director — has been publicly supportive of the race program.

However, Visser’s comments cast a cloud over it — certainly from 2017, which ironically will be the year that V8 Supercars opens its category up further by allowing smaller-capacity turbocharged engines against the traditional V8s.

Also in doubt now is the touted Volvo participation from 2016 in the World Touring Car Championship, which features four-cylinder 1.6-litre turbo engines.

Volvo Cars Group CEO Hakan Samuelsson’s gave a clue on this change of direction in August, when asked by motoring.com.au if Volvo had a long-term commitment to motorsport.

“In general, not really,” he said, adding: "but we have a commitment in Australia which is running for some more years.

“In the end, we do it if we think we can make money from selling more cars.

“Long-term it’s not really the cars we will be producing so it’s on the negative list, but let’s now continue the contract we have.

“Long-term it would be more interesting [to] maybe look into a hybrid formula. That’s open for discussion but there’s nothing I’ve heard about,” he said.

Visser, who joined Volvo from General Motors in 2012 and initially was its sales and marketing vice-president, has now signalled a complete revision of the company’s marketing strategy with an approach called the Volvo Way to Market.

It wants to start selling its cars online directly to customers worldwide, although it says it still sees a place for dealers.

While the new approach will mean an increase in Volvo’s advertising budget, it will come with a totally different way to allocate the money.

It only wants to participate in three motor shows — Geneva, Detroit and Shanghai/Beijing — and will end all sponsorships except for that of the round-the-world ocean sailing race.

It sees that event as “purely Volvo … the most competitive, fair and pure blend of people with nature”.

Visser said the company was “pulling out of the STCC (in which it has been campaigning three S60s) as soon as the contracts permits”.

In Australia it entered the V8 Supercar Championship this season, with its performance partner Polestar Racing providing specially-built 5.0-litre engines to Garry Rogers Motorsport, which had long been a Holden team.

GRM’s 21-year-old New Zealander Scott McLaughlin won four of the 38 races in the championship and claimed 10 pole positions -- as many poles as six-time champion Jamie Whincup this year.

A second S60 was driven here by Swede Robert Dahlgren, but he did not adapt well to V8 Supercar racing and is returning home to be replaced by David Wall, who has been driving a Ford Falcon for Dick Johnson Racing.

Braid’s recent departure from Volvo Cars Australia after having championed the company’s entry into V8 Supercars was seen to have ended any thoughts of expanding to as many as four cars in the series.

However, Braid’s replacement, McCann, quickly made clear that he saw racing as a valuable promotional tool for the company in striving for a more sporty image here.

“I have inherited it [the V8 Supercar race program] and it is a package that is already existing and working — and the feedback that I am getting is it is working very well,” McCann told the V8 Supercars website little more than a month ago.

“I think we will continue to look for more and better leverage points to make sure of it.

“I think it is a great way to showcase our product and technology. It is a really wonderful rallying point for our staff and our dealer network, who need the motivation and enthusiasm to continue to work the market.

“I think sports sponsorship is part of working in the Australian market.

“It [Australia] is a little bit unique compared to other major markets in the world -- the fact the Australian audience is so passionate about whichever sport they follow, whether it’s to come along to an event, or whether it’s watching it on television, or reading about it in the various media they use to cover it.

“Sport is really a big part of our [Australian] lives and, if we want to communicate with the Australian public, then sport is an ideal way to go.

“Now we are a car company, so probably the most direct sport we can become involved with in a competitive sense is motorsport — and if we can add that involvement, that active engagement with the marketing elements and the sponsorship elements it also comes with, then it should be a good thing for us.”

A Polestar Racing spokesman told the TouringCarTimes website after the announcement of Volvo’s new marketing strategy: “We are going to continue racing in the 2015 STCC and V8 Supercars.

“The STCC contract runs out after 2015 and V8 Supercars after 2016. We are going to evaluate our participation after that, as we for example have done a number of times in the past for the STCC, a championship we have taken part in since 1996.

”We have a long-term contract with Volvo as the official motorsport and performance partner. The form of co-operation regarding motorsport between Volvo and Polestar is being evolved and we look positively towards the future.”

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Written byGeoffrey Harris
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