MAY 10, 2002

Volkswagen's press conference

VOLKSWAGEN will announce on Wednesday that it is to enter a factory team in the Paris-Dakar Rally for lady racer Jutta Kleinschmidt. The vehicle will be the Volkswagen Touareg 4x4 which has been developed in recent years as a joint venture between Volkswagen and Porsche. The Porsche version of the car is to be called the Porsche Cayenne.

The interesting thing is that there are rumored to be other announcements coming and this has, inevitably, led to stories that VW is about to enter F1 with one of its other brands, the most likely marque in F1 being Audi, which has been singled out by the new VW boss Bernd Pischetsrieder as a sporting brand.

At the moment Volkswagen denies any intention to enter F1.