Don’t get too excited — it was mainly a photo op, so the floggings were minimal. Nonetheless, Rally Deutschland this past weekend was the venue for Carlos Sainz’s exhibition burn in Volkswagen Motorsports’ Scirocco GT24-CNG. That’s the 275-hp, race version of the Scirocco R-Cup powered by bio-natural-gas. Sainz piloted the “number zero” car as a course opener during Friday’s stages, while VW teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah ran it on Saturday and Sunday.

Volkswagen calls the GT24-CNG — which also ran at the the Nürburgring 24-hour race earlier this year — cleanest car in the field, claiming it cuts CO2 emissions by 80 percent over the Gasoline-powered R-Cup. Sainz, a two-time WRC champ and Dakar 2010 winner, finished his last motorsport competition in Germany in third place: six years ago Sainz mounted the podium at the ADAC Rally Germany. Al-Attiyah, who finished second at Dakar this year in — like Sainz — a Diesel-powered Race Touareg 2, is contesting the WRC Super 2000 category.

VW’s playing to the eco-conscious crowd with this one. But tell me you wouldn’t love to see 500-hp Sciroccos in WRC. Sadly, it’s too big for the latest WRC rules. Don’t rule out its next pint-sized sibling — in a couple of years.