No-one can accuse of Japanese luxury-brand wannabe Infiniti of not trying to claw its way into competition with BMW, Audi and Mercedes.

Because recent strong rumours that Infiniti is about to add a touring car programme to its title sponsorship of Red Bull Racing look to be highly accurate.

According to sources at the Paris motor show, it seems Infiniti will launch a racing programme in London in the next couple of weeks.

Related articles

The extent of the programme is yet to emerge, but in all likelihood it will be based on the rear-drive Q50 saloon, Infiniti’s BMW 3-series chaser.

And whether it will be focused on the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship, or a more ambitious global tin-top programme, is also yet to be confirmed.

However, the sources suggest that it will involve further heavy investment in racing by Infiniti, with the programme run by a third-party team.

RML, the Ray Mallock operation, has been linked to Infiniti parent company Nissan and has built some track-influenced project cars, such as the one-off Nissan Juke-R. However, our sources suggest that another race team is working with Infiniti.