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The president of Turkmenistan has won his country's maiden car race after an impromptu decision to enter.

Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov drove to the track in the capital Ashgabat in a green Bugatti sports car to watch.

Suddenly asking to take part, he changed to a Turkish-made Volkicar and won the time trial challenge.

Correspondents say the apparently choreographed display seemed designed to enhance the president's image as a man of action.

The winning car will be given to the desert country's national sports museum.

Mr Berdymukhamedov, a former health minister, came to power following the death of his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, at the age of 66, in 2006.

He was first elected president in 2007 with 89% of the vote and was returned to power in elections in February with 97% of the vote.

His choice to travel to Saturday's race in a Bugatti was in stark contrast with his preferred mode of transport during the elections, when he drove to a polling station with his family in a cramped Soviet-era Lada - a car much derided in the West for its unreliability.

Mr Berdymukhamedov, a fitness fanatic, wants to turn Turkmenistan, which gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, into a sporting power.

To date, the country of 5.5 million people has yet to win a single medal in the Olympic Games.