Carlos Sainz takes stock of the Dakar 2023 after his unfortunate abandonment.
Carlos Sainz has taken stock of his sixteenth Dakar, just a few hours after saying goodbye to it, in the camp in the Saudi city of Haradh. There, after a long day, his abandonment was certified due to the damage to the car after the accident with which he began the day. “It’s my fault and no one else’s,” said the three-time Madrid champion.
Tuesday was a black day for Carlos Sainz and his co-driver, Lucas Cruz. As in each of the stages of the rally, the Spanish duo came out to fight for partial victory, their only objective after losing all hope of victory after an accident on the sixth day of the rally, the same day that Peterhansel said goodbye.
In the fifth kilometer of the ninth special, Carlos and Lucas rolled after facing a dune at a higher speed than they should, which caused damage to the Audi and also pain to Sainz’s body, the result of an impact estimated at 28G.
“My body is sore after this second hard landing. It’s been a few days of impacts. At first I had pain in the area that hurt me before, but it has gone away a bit,” Sainz said on Tuesday, as as it collects MARCA.
“There are infinity of dunes of this type, we passed 70,000 during the rally, but today I misjudged the speed, I didn’t think there would be that hole and in fact there wasn’t two meters to the left and there was two meters to the right. It’s my fault and no one else’s,” he said.
After the accident, due to the pain he was suffering, Carlos was evacuated by helicopter, but something unexpected happened: the pilot had to land to enter the coordinates of the hospital he was going to, and Sainz took the opportunity to turn around and return to the area of the accident, with the aim of continuing the race.
“It hurt me, I asked the doctor to wait a bit, but he insisted that we should go to the hospital,” Sainz explains. “About 10 minutes later, the helicopter had to land because the pilot had to enter the coordinates of the hospital. It landed, I turned around and told him that I wanted to try to take the car to assistance, and see if tonight I I felt better.”
But unfortunately the car was beyond repair. Once it reached the camp by road, the team’s engineers and mechanics saw that it was impossible to repair it to continue. “We wanted to continue learning, to get to know the Empty Quarter better and try to win another stage, which was what we were trying to do,” he commented.
A stage victory and lead at the start of the Dakar
Carlos achieved victory in the first stage of the Dakar and was the leader until the third day of the rally, but the broken suspension ball joint on the third day and then the accident on the sixth stage, eliminated him from the fight for what would have been his fourth ‘touareg’. Despite the setbacks, Sainz is happy with the pace of the car:
“I think we’ve done well, but things haven’t worked out for us. The Dakar is a race that is won more by going defensive than by going on the attack,” he explains. Fortune hasn’t been on his team at Audi either: Peterhansel also dropped out a few days ago, and Mattias has suffered countless incidents.
“It reminds me of Volkswagen’s beginnings, which were very hard and then it came all the time. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to fight in the future to try to win this race with a car that is so, so difficult and with such a complex challenge as winning with him,” he added.
Time to take stock and decide its continuity
As he does at the end of each Dakar, now Carlos Sainz, once he returns home, will take stock of what happened in this edition of the rally and decide whether or not he wants to continue competing. El Matador trusts the Audi project and has the potential to continue fighting at the first level, will it be enough?
“After the Dakar there is always a period of personal reflection, where one analyzes everything. Going home, thinking, recovering in those two weeks that you always need after a Dakar and even more so if it has been a bit bumpy like this one. We will also have to see what Audi wants to do, what plans it has for the future,” he said.
Carlos also sent a message to the FIA about the new rule that exists in the Dakar, according to which they can make an adjustment to the “Balance of Performance” every three days, which allows giving more or less power to the cars with the objective to guarantee equality.
“I honestly believe that there is a lot to analyze and not only by Audi, but also by others (in reference to that ‘Balance of Performance’) you have to analyze many things,” he commented.
