Puro Offroad

First competition contested with the Volkswagen Race Touareg, second leg, first win: in the second of the seven legs of the Central Europe Rally, Germany’s Dieter Depping gave Volkswagen their second leg win. Together with his co-driver, Timo Gottschalk, the 41-year old completed the addition of the two selective and particularly demanding special stages held around the Romanian city of Baia Mare faster than anybody else, thus moving up to third position in the overall standings.
At the same time, Volkswagen Motorsport holds additional top position in the overall standings: Carlos Sainz/Michel Périn (E/F), the winners of leg one, hold the runner-up position, 22 seconds behind the current leader, Stéphane Peterhansel (Mitsubishi). Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz (RSA/D), however, lost some time due to a windscreen-wiper problem and will start into the third day of the rally from ninth place, behind Carlos Sousa/Andreas Schulz (P/D) in the Race Touareg 2 of customer team Lagos. Altogether, four Race Touaregs hold top-ten positions. Read the rest of this entry »

The only driver to finish the 63 km in less than 40 minutes was Spaniard Carlos Sainz (VW), who won the first special stage for cars in the Central Europe Rally, but with only a short lead of 41 seconds over Robby Gordon.

The American, who started in 12th position, managed to prevent a one-two for the Wolfsburg-based constructor because South African Giniel De Villiers (VW) took 3rd place. In 4th position, Stephane Peterhansel is the leading Mitsubishi driver and is 1′02″ behind the day’s winner.

It was in fine spring sunshine and in front of large crowds that the caravan set off from the podium in Budapest this morning, Read the rest of this entry »