Volkswagen won the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Dakar Rally, the latter with the Race Touareg 3, with drivers De Villiers, Carlos Sainz and Nasser Al-Attiyah.

In November 2011, the team revealed they have made a multi-year contract with the French rally star Sébastien Ogier and his co-driver Julien Ingrassia.

For 2012 season, Volkswagen Motorsport continued developing their Polo R World Rally Car and they also completed a full WRC-campaign (except New Zealand) with a pair of Škoda Fabias.

Sébastien Ogier drove it in every round of the campaign, while the second car was shared between Andreas Mikkelsen and Kevin Abbring.

Sébastien Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala started the season, whilst Andreas Mikkelsen joined the championship at the fourth round in Portugal.

Mikkelsen and his new co-driver Mikko Markkula were registered under a second manufacturer team, known as “Volkswagen Motorsport II” so as to give them as much time as possible testing the Polo R WRC.

This came as a surprise to many fans and journalists, as the team and their drivers had already been conducting major development and testing work on the new 2017 Polo, based on the new generation WRC cars.

[8] In November 2019, Volkswagen announced that, consistent with its shift in focus to emphasize the manufacturing of electric vehicles, it would end all internal combustion engine-based motorsport activities.