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.

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.