X-Country - Sainz joins Volkswagen Dakar Rally squad
Jun-21 2005 / 09:27 EDT

Double World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz has joined the Volkswagen team. The Spaniard's first competitive outing at the wheel of one of Volkswagen's mighty Race-Touareg cross-country machines will come on September's Rallye des Pharaons in Egypt.

Sainz will also be part of the rapidly expanding Volkswagen team on January's Dakar Rally alongside Germany's Jutta Kleinschmidt, Frenchman Bruno Saby and South African Giniel de Villiers. A fifth Race-Touareg for American ace Robby Gordon is being planned.

Welcoming Sainz to the team, Volkswagen Motorsport director Kris Nissen said: 'We are delighted to have won the services of one of the most experienced and professional rally drivers for our team. Such a top professional can only endorse and improve our working procedures.'

Added Sainz: 'To contest the Dakar Rally with Volkswagen is a new and exciting challenge for me. I'm looking forward to getting to know cross-country rallying and hope that my experience can bring the team forward.'

Sainz, 43, won the World Rally Championship in 1990 and '92 and heads the all-time WRC winner list with 26 rally victories. He helped Citroen clinch the manufacturers championship last year before calling time on his career. 'However the Dakar Rally has always been a challenge for me. In this way I can keep in touch with motorsport and will not have to travel as much as I did during a complete championship season.' His co-driver will be Germany's Andy Schulz.

Meanwhile, the Volkswagen team is ready to defend Bruno Saby's overall lead in the FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup on Turkey's Rallye d'Orient, which gets underway on Sunday (26 June) and finishes in Ankara, 3600 km later, on 2 July.

Saby enjoys a 22-point championship advantage following victories on Argentina's Por Las Pampas Rally and the Rallye Orpi Maroc; he also placed second on the Rally de Tunisie. Joining Saby and his French co-driver Michel Perin in Turkey in Volkswagen's two-car squad will be Giniel de Villiers and his co-driver Tina Thorner, from Sweden.