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| Jost Capito |
JOST CAPITO is Volkswagen's motorsport director. Before joining Volkswagen in May '12, he worked as Ford's director of global performance vehicles & motorsport business development. Captio has spent more than three decades in motorsports, dating back to his beginnings with BMW as an engineer for its high-performance engines in '84. The German native brings vast experience to his position at Volkswagen including as COO of the Sauber F1 team in the late '90s. Capito recently spoke with SBD Global about Volkswagen's success in the World Rally Championship, the marketing power of sports and the U.S. motorsports scene.
On Volkswagen’s motorsports involvements…
Jost Capito: The main program and the big program is the World Rally Championship, which Volkswagen joined in 2013 and subsequently won the titles in ’13 and ’14 -- manufacturers, drivers and co-drivers titles. It has been a very successful start. The second program is GRC, rallycross in the U.S. We kicked it off last year with Andretti Autosport and this year we started using the iconic Beetle. Wherever a series develops it’s an opportunity or it could be an opportunity for Volkswagen to get in. At the moment there’s nothing really like this in China. In China, Volkswagen of China runs a junior formula series, Formula Masters China Series. In India for example, there is a Polo Cup competition. These activities are done and organized, and the responsibilities are with the national sales companies and their motorsports organizations. What we do, is we support them on the engineering and development of cars. To make sure they have the right performance and are reliable. In addition, we have a Formula 3 program.
On motorsports as a brand marketing tool…
Capito: It’s very important. The Volkswagen philosophy is if you are in motorsport, with whatever brand in the group, you have to win. You get your time to win but you have to show that you are ahead of your competition. From a marketing side, it’s very important and we see the results over the last two years since we’ve joined WRC. All the research we get from magazines shows that the sporty image of Volkswagen has grown quite substantially over the last two years. We also track what percentage of people who know that Volkswagen is in WRC buy a Volkswagen and what is the percentage of people who don’t know that Volkswagen is in WRC and buy a Volkswagen. We see that a much higher number of people who know about the sporting success buy a Volkswagen than the people who don’t know. We can really follow-up what type of marketing success we have with our motorsports activities. China and the U.S. are the biggest markets in the world. Deciding on a motorsports program is to support the brand image, to support the sales and the growth of the brand in the market. WRC is very much Europe and South America-based and then there’s a specific program in the U.S. It just shows how important the U.S. is for the Volkswagen brand.
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| Source: GETTY IMAGES |
On the U.S. motorsports landscape…
Capito: When you look what you can do in the U.S. with small cars it’s really only rallycross. It is the biggest growing motorsport sector. It also has the youngest following of any motorsport. It’s very successful on social media, especially when you look at the data. The top 10 drivers in GRC have more followers than the complete motorsports scene in the U.S. There’s also a lot of potential. Races are in cities. They are easy to set up and they can be held everywhere. I think it’s the right concept for the future of motorsports. It’s a big factor to have the right target audience. When you look at the Beetle, Golfs and GTIs, we need young people. Volkswagen doesn’t have trucks in the U.S. and doesn’t have V8s in the U.S., so you have to target the right customer group.
On the future of motorsports…
Capito: Changes are necessary. All the discussions we have are really looking promising. All the organizations in the U.S. are going in the right direction and know what the future will be. They are very open to talk to manufacturers. It’s a very good atmosphere. It’s obvious that a manufacturer can’t go everywhere and my personal opinion is you have to do something right instead of 10 things not right.
On new concepts such as all-electric racing series Formula E…
Capito: I think it becomes interesting for whatever manufacturer only when the rules are open and when you can show your technology. What we do as a group and also as Volkswagen Motorsport is looking at all the series that are around. It’s one of the tasks of the motorsports directors to know what’s going on in the world, knowing what it is and evaluate what could be an opportunity. This is why speculations always come up about Formula 1, NASCAR and Formula E. Of course, we go to the races and have a look to know what’s going on. It’s a moving market and the responsibility of a motorsport director is to know what is going on in the motorsports world and not only in the series that you are actually participating. However, it doesn’t mean that there are plans to participate somewhere else.
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| Source: GETTY IMAGES |
On the brand's commitment to the WRC until at least '19…
Capito: If you have four years in front of you and Toyota is joining in 2017 that will make the WRC very exciting. From 2017 when Toyota joins, it will be Toyota, Hyundai, Ford and Volkswagen -- four of big five global manufacturers will be in one motorsports series. I don’t remember this ever being the case before. That will make WRC a very exciting global series because the global manufacturers will utilize it and market it globally. I think that will be a big boost for the World Rally Championship globally.
Hangin' With runs each Friday in SBD Global.
