Why VW won't get the credit it deserves

Volkswagen technical director Francois-Xavier Demaison waited. The rally-winning Polo R WRC rolled to a halt next to him: the final control. Rally Australia victor Andreas Mikkelsen stepped out and smiled at the man who created the car he'd just brought home safely.

One last time. One last win.

"Great job, Andreas," smiled Demaison. "But, I'm sorry... you're sacked!"

Such levity helped defuse some of the emotion. Some.

Volkswagen's dieselgate-enforced departure from the World Rally Championship brings to an end the most successful, in terms of wins per starts, campaign from a single manufacturer in the series' history.

You want numbers? How long have you got?

Total domination of drivers', co-drivers' and manufacturers' championships for the last four years; 43 rally wins from 52 starts. Or if it's stage performances you're after, try this: 640 wins from 958 stages.

Or a more rounded team performance? No problem. The Hannover-based boys and girls delivered 20 one-two finishes, last week's 2016 season finale being the last one, and locked out the podium four times. Volkswagen has led the manufacturers' standings for an astonishing 1346 days in a row.

Asked to sum up Volkswagen's contribution to the WRC, team principal Sven Smeets gave it some thought. His voice wobbled.

"Maybe we need a few hours..." he said. "I don't know, but I hope we left a mark. I hope we will never be forgotten."

Some chance. No chance. As I've already highlighted, the results speak for themselves.

Success in world rallying has been redefined. It's debatable whether we will see that kind of dominance again in such a short space of time. Certainly, next year's new cars look set to bring a new level of openness to the competition. Most feel that would be the case even if Volkswagen had remained until 2019, as had been originally planned.

But would the astonishing run of victories have continued? Could it have continued?

We'll never know, but post-VW there are certainly some in the service park who appreciate the Polo's departure as an opportunity for the WRC to emerge from a four-year blue and white wash.

Others, such as Kris Meeke, are sad to see the back of the car and the team.

The championship without Volkswagen is far from worthless, but it is worth less. Meeke and Citroen Racing have spent this season gearing-up to take on rallying's nouveau riche. And now they're gone. We will now never know whether Meeke and his C3 WRC could have eclipsed Sebastien Ogier and his Polo R WRC.

The flip side of that is the reality, put forward by one senior team member from a rival WRC force.

"Give it six months," he said, "and people won't remember Volkswagen."

Harsh as it sounds, there's a truth in there. It's inevitable. Which returns us to the question posed to Smeets. What will Volkswagen's legacy be?

In terms of longevity, it would be quite wrong to line this team up against the sport's historical heavy hitters, the Lancias, Fords and most recently Citroens of the world championship.

In four years, Volkswagen garnered great success, but did it really become one of rallying's superpowers?

Lancia's rally-winning appeal spanned multiple rule changes; the Italians carried success from Group 4 to Group B to Group A. The Milanese-made Stratos will forever remain a cornerstone of the WRC in the same way the last-run Delta HF Integrale will.

Such cars delivered 10 titles. The Polo came, collected and checked-out. And it came at a time ripe for domination: Citroen's commitment to the series was on the wane as Sebastien Loeb signed off and signed up to take the brand circuit racing. And Ford departed the year Volkswagen arrived.

What was left?

An inevitably weaker Ford Fiesta RS WRC run by an M-Sport team regularly forced to decide whether to spend its budget on cars or drivers. The Cumbrian's made a fine cake, but rarely had the chance to sample it for themselves.

And a DS 3 WRC frozen in time in terms of post-2011 development. And no Loeb. No benchmark.

Undoubtedly, had the nine-time champion stayed for a full 2013 campaign, he would have had a real fight on his hands to deny Ogier a maiden crown in favour a 10th of his own. But what a year it would have been.

The same could be said for Ogier himself. Had he decided against joining Volkswagen and signed a two-year deal with M-Sport, Volkswagen's staggering 2013 rookie season would have looked quite different.

Granted, Hyundai was coming, but by the time the i20 WRC was approaching anything like a worthy rival to the Polo, the Volkswagen steamroller had built an irresistible head of steam and was winning rallies for fun.

Volkswagen landed itself in a perfect storm of success. It would be ridiculous to suggest the Germans had arranged their assault on world rallying in such a fashion. The Polo would have been planned years ahead of its launch at Rally Italia in Sardinia, 2011.

That event, incidentally, marked the maiden outing of Prodrive's Mini John Cooper Works WRC, another car that threatened the rallying establishment but faded soon after it arrived.

No, any suggestion of opportunism from Volkswagen would be significantly wide of the mark. But those ducks didn't half line up nicely once the Polo hit the road. A good few of them put in place at the Hannover HQ.

Hiring the best driver of his generation was a good start, but who ever heard of a manufacturer taking another couple of cars and contesting a full season (save for New Zealand), just to get the sporting side of the operation up to speed before launching its own programme? That's what VW did with its Skoda Fabia S2000s in 2012, below.

As for the Polo, it had the full weight of Volkswagen Group engineering force behind it - ironically, it was those same links that brought about its downfall - and reportedly the biggest budget to grace the WRC in years.

Without question, those resources made Demaison's job more straightforward, but he still deserves credit for demonstrating the know-how and ingenuity to put the euros to the best possible use.

The primary driver in Volkswagen's diminished success rate this season - without decrying Meeke's awesome Finland win, Ott Tanak in a Fiesta and the latest and greatest Hyundai - was the FIA's running order regulation, which made it virtually impossible for Ogier to win on gravel from his inevitable spot at the at the top of the table.

Even then, even when Ogier had been handicapped, had Jari-Matti Latvala not been in his own world of pain, Volkswagen should have won more often - in the same swashbuckling style of Mikkelsen's Australian success.

That regulation uncovered Volkswagen's reliance on its superstar. Time and again, he carried the team home when its number two Latvala, or Latvala's car, let him and Volkswagen down.

Whether or not Volkswagen will be remembered as a true giant of rallying, there's no denying the partnership between Frenchman and his machine was as good as anything that's ever gone before them in the WRC.

Volkswagen came to the championship with humility and departed in good grace. And the WRC has a vast amount to be thankful for. VW delivered a magnificent, era-defining car and totally redefined what was possible in terms of marketing activation off the back of that success.

For two years, at least, Volkswagen acted as the series promoter as well as its dominant force.

To a man and woman, Volkswagen Motorsport was ready for the challenge 2017 and the next generation would have brought.

Much as you and I are smarting at missing out on what would have been a stunning five-way fight with Citroen, Hyundai, Toyota and M-Sport, Volkswagen's missed its opportunity for crowning glory.

And that will hurt in Hannover more than anywhere else in the world.