Loeb: "Annoying" VW dominance could make Peugeot quit RX

Petter Solberg’s PSRX team secured Volkswagen support to build a works Polo in January after the German marque exited the WRC in the wake of the 'dieselgate' scandal.

That support has led to key figures from its WRC campaign, including technical director Francois-Xavier Demaison, becoming involved in PSRX.

PSRX has since racked up six wins from nine rounds and leads 2015 title winners Peugeot-Hansen by 112 points in the teams’ championship, and Loeb says its dominance is irritating competitors.

“Volkswagen's dominance annoys pretty much everyone,” he told Motorsport.com. “Now they're coming with a car that was developed for the WRC, with a WRC-like budget, and adapted to rallycross.

“They're racing private teams which try to make cars that are not the same level and it's a bit complicated for everybody."

Nine-time WRC champion Loeb says that the organisers will have to consider a form of budget control, and that Peugeot doesn’t stand a chance of competing in the WRX without more funding.

"They will have to control this quickly, that's for sure," he added. “Nowadays, a constructor spends five million for a season, and the return on investment is very interesting.

“But if you have to put in €30 million, the balance is not the same. They need to find a quick solution to keep the budgets.

"Either we do things more seriously than now with Peugeot or we'll stop doing them. That's more or less the situation.

"I hope we keep going and [Peugeot] can put in a bit more budget to try and develop the car and get better, because it's clear that in the current state of things, we don't stand a chance."

"I think either Peugeot will invest to race in rallycross properly or the team will do something else. We won't do rallycross in the same conditions as today. Either it will be done better or it will stop here."

Translation by Benjamin Vinel