Volkswagen Confirms Updated Touareg 3 for 2011 Dakar Rally

One good old saying goes like this “If it works, why change it?” Well, that certainly doesn't apply to motor racing, where one victory is not necessarily followed by another one unless the winning team comes up with some decent updates from race to race. And that has a correspondent in marathon events also, as each team tends to improve its machines year after year, in an attempt to either secure its “dictatorship” in the race or upset the team to beat.

After two years of comfortable wins in the Dakar Rally, this is exactly the case of Volkswagen. Having won the only two editions of the rally held on the South American continent (Argentina and Chile), the German carmaker made the next step towards securing a hat-trick in the January event and introduced the Race Touareg 3.

“The evolution of the vehicle into the Race Touareg 3 represents the next logical step we're taking towards our big aim of achieving the hat-trick at the Dakar Rally,” said Volkswagen Motorsport director Kris Nissen in a statement.

“With new aerodynamics this Race Touareg will look even more spectacular than before. Its core is well proven because we continue to bank on the consistently optimized technology package that has been giving the Race Touareg first-rate performance and maximum reliability,” added the Volkswagen officials.

The new Race Touareg was not built from scratch however, as it keeps the same chassis, TDI engine configuration and suspension from its predecessor. Only slight modifications have been operated on the car in order to improve its capabilities for the aforementioned event.

The first one to spoke publicly about VW's need to update the Touareg was the very winner of this year's race Carlos Sainz, who admitted he was puzzled by the incredible pace showed by Stephane Peterhansel in his BMW X3 in the early stages of the rally. The only thing that kept the Frenchman from continuing his good run was a mechanical failure in the first week of the rally.

The new car will be officially disclosed by VW in August, after which it will be started in the Dakar Rally preparation event Silk Way Rally.