No decision yet on V8 Supercars future for Volvo

There is no decision taken yet from Volvo regarding continuing in the V8 Supercars championship beyond 2016 when the current contract runs out and the new Gen2 regulations comes into force.
“We’ll make the decision closer to the point in time when we have to make a decision,” said Kevin McCann, Volvo Australia Managing Director to goauto.com.au.

“In fairness to all of that, we have no disappointments or regrets about our involvement in motorsport. We needed to expand the footprint of the brand.”

There was a lot of speculation going on earlier this year on the future of Volvo in motorsport after contradicting statements made by Volvo Cars’ Marketing Director Alain Visser and Lex Kerssemakers, senior VP of Product Planning and Vehicle Line Management. Visser stated that motorsport does not conform with their brand while Kerssemakers said that Volvo will always have its hand in racing.

One of the main topics for debate was that Volvo’s safety image would not conform with motorsport, something McCann does not agree with.

“Safety’s still important to us. But we also needed to show Volvo as a brand with some cache, some excitement, some fun and some enjoyment. I think motorsport is a great way to do that,” said McCann.

“In my experience, I don’t think I’ve met many people in one place more concerned about safety than the motorsport fraternity. That is a racetrack, and a race team and a garage, is an extremely safe place to be. So safety’s a strong core value for them as well.”

Volvo Cars recently bought Polestar, its performance and motorsport partner, and primarily the performance section of the company. Former Polestar owner Christian Dahl will continue to run the racing section in a separate company that will maintain the motorsport programmes for Volvo.