Lucas Sáez-Bravo

Updated Friday, January 19, 2024-09:43

When

Carlos Sainz

raised his third Touareg, four years ago, also in Saudi Arabia, his eternal co-driver

Lucas Cruz

(12 of the 17 participations together) claimed his legend: "When everyone thinks that Carlos is old, he takes a hit on the table and wins the Dakar".

It was the second time that he raised the age bar as winner of the legendary rally event and anyone would have thought it was the last.

Nothing is further from reality.

The Matador had not satisfied his hunger.

"As long as I keep having fun," he told this newspaper before leaving for another feat: this Friday, at 61 years old, the man from Madrid, in an impeccable exercise of skill, navigation, experience and composure over 7,891 kilometers (4,727 timed), has conquered Yanbu, on the shores of the Red Sea, for the fourth time the Dakar Rally.

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DAKAR RALLY.

Carlos Sainz and another Dakar at 61: "At this point the vital thing is to continue having fun"

  • Editor: LUCAS SÁEZ-BRAVO Madrid

Carlos Sainz and another Dakar at 61: "At this point the vital thing is to continue having fun"

The Spaniard's feat encompasses different challenges overcome, as if at his age, with a lifetime behind the wheel achieving the impossible, a common triumph was not worth it.

Sainz, who won his first Dakar in 2010 with Volkswagen, has achieved what no one else has, four wins with four different manufacturers - in 2018 it was with Peugeot and in 2020 with Mini -, although this time, in the 46th edition, with Audi, he has an even greater meaning.

Because it is also a pioneer in winning the rally rally with a hybrid prototype, with electric motorization ("you have to be very brave to take this type of vehicle through the desert"), the Audi RS Q e-tron, putting the cherry on top of the project. of the German team in "the last shot".

After three ambitious and million-dollar attempts, the brand with the four rings had announced its goodbye to the Dakar, which had always resisted it.

He will do it with his first and last Touareg.

15 kilowatts

The Audi mission seemed like an impossible challenge that Sainz has once again unraveled.

Especially after the disappointment of last year, where he led the race but had to abandon after a serious accident in which the Madrid native suffered a double vertebra fracture that took him months to recover.

Once physically ready - his spartan training routines include

strength series, abdominal, lumbar, arm and shoulder work, as well as sauna sessions to acclimatize to the heat

- he got to work trying to improve his futuristic car, especially in its weak point, reliability, and try to match it as much as possible to the others.

"It didn't have the power it should have. Finally, the FIA, after studying telemetry and so on, gave us those 15 extra kilowatts that put us on par with the rest and with that I think we're going to be able to have a race that's a little more tactical and not risking like Last year we went every meter," he anticipated.

So it was.

Since he grabbed the lead on the second stage in Al Duwadimi - won by his teammate

Stephane Peterhansel

-, Sainz has shown enviable consistency.

Even when a day later he lost it after a puncture to

Yazeed Al Rajhi

's Toyota , minimizing damage on the worst day.

It was going to be in the Rub Al Khali desert where his success would be forged, in 48 hours of mastery through the inhospitable dunes that saw his great rival, the Qatari

Nasser Al-Attiyah

, winner of the last two editions and challenger, run aground: "He "I give Sainz three days to go home."

The Spaniard's risky strategy contained an intentional waste of time: in the fifth special they started behind and counted on the rivals' lines on the sand.

Master play.

Carlos Sainz, during stage 11 of the Dakar.PATRICK HERTZOGAFP

After the rest stage, another motor classic,

Sebastian Loeb

, his former teammate at Citroën in the world rally championship, was Sainz's only rival.

A war of nerves, punctures and help from teammates resolved on Thursday, in the decisive stage, where the Frenchman squandered his options with an early breakdown of his BRX Prodrive on the Yanbu scree and the Matador cautiously marched towards glory.

This time fortune did not elude the Spaniard.

He is the legend of the incombustible, of the boy from Pozuelo who shone in squash and soccer until his sister's future husband,

Juan Carlos Oñoro

, injected him with a passion for motors.

It is the still endless story ("I will be honest with myself and see if the balance falls in the direction of continuing to try. I have earned the right to have any decision respected") of Carlos Sainz Cenamor, one of the greatest of the history of Spanish sport that 34 years ago already won its first World Rally Championship.