Dakar Touareg on test in Silk
2010-09-06 10:05
The new Race Touareg 3, with which Volkswagen aims to score a remarkable hat trick of Dakar Rally victories in January 2011, faces its first real challenge under competitive conditions when it takes on the Silk Way Rally in Russia over September 11-18.
All four of Volkswagen’s Dakar rally crews will be in action in the 4579km marathon which will start from the historic Palace Square of the St Petersburg Winter Palace on September 11 and end in Sochi on September 18.
Spain’s Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz (2010 Dakar winners) will team up in the new Race Touareg 3, while team mates Giniel de Villiers of South Africa and German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz (2009 Dakar winners), Mark Miller (USA)/Ralph Pitchford (South Africa) and Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar)/Timo Gottschalk (Germany) will compete in the Race Touareg 2 before receiving the third generation car for the Dakar Rally in January 2011.
De Villiers, a former SA National circuit and off-road champion, became in 2009 the first South African to win the Dakar Rally (held that year in South America) when he and Von Zitzewitz scored the TDI diesel Touareg 2 car’s first win in the world’s toughest off-road race. Pitchford, a former National off-road motorcycle and the current Production Car co-driver champion, navigated Miller to second overall.
The route, which includes 2100km of special stages, will take competitors from St Petersburg, the world’s northernmost metropolis, to Staraya Russa and from there via Vyazma, Lipetsk and Volgograd to Sochi, the rally’s final destination and venue of the 2014 Winter Olympics.
With eight special stages across northern Russia featuring the sandy massifs of Kalmykia and the rough foothills of the Caucasus, it will be ideal preparation for the 2011 Dakar through Argentina and Chile.
'Task of enormous importance'
The new all-wheel drive Race Touareg 3, which has already successfully completed some 10 000km of testing in Spain and Morocco, develops 230kW and has the attractive design language of the latest production model.
“The Silk Way Rally is a task of enormous importance to us,” said Kris Nissen, VW's motorsport director, “because it is the only competition we’re tackling before the 2011 Dakar and our aim of achieving a hat trick there.
"We want to use the opportunity not only to test the material at this tough rally and to sharpen the senses of our drivers and co-drivers after an eight-month break in rally racing – but very clearly get our whole team to work together smoothly. After all, this is the Dakar dress rehearsal for the engineers and technicians as well.”
De Villiers said: “The 2009 Silk Way was my first time in the car after a back operation I had after the 2009 Dakar. It was tough. After driving most of the testing in Morocco, I feel I’m a lot better prepared this time. It will be good to get back into competitive mode after such a long break.”
