RALLY DAKAR 2023

Carlos Sainz, in his farewell to the Dakar: "It's my fault and no one else's"

Carlos Sainz finished his sixteenth Dakar early. After trying to the end, his car has said 'enough' and it will not be able to be repaired to compete again tomorrow and try to reach Dammam on the 15th. Sainz and Cruz have tried everything, but tomorrow they will return home and begin to think in the next Dakar.

Sainz, first of all, confirmed his good physical condition despite revealing that today's impact was especially strong: "I'm fine, my body is sore after this second hard landing. It's been a few days of impacts. This has been 27 -28 G. At the beginning I had a lot of pain in the area that already hurt me before, but in the end it has gone away little by little".

"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 acknowledged.

A process similar to what happened to him this morning when he decided to go back to the car after heading to the hospital. This is how Sainz narrated the episode for which this Dakar will undoubtedly be remembered for a long time. "It's not a feat, I'm honest. It hurt me, I asked the doctor to wait a bit, but he insisted that we should go to the hospital."

However, something changed shortly after: "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 I felt better tonight... It's normal to try to continue and bring the car. Unfortunately, the car was beyond repair".

Sainz confirmed that, had it been feasible, they would have continued "We wanted to continue learning, to get to know the Empty Quarter better and try to win another stage, which is what we were trying to do."

An unfortunate Dakar for Audi... The good taste in the mouth of having tried everything contrasted with the poor balance of the race for the entire Audi team: "It feels bad, because in the end it's a disappointment. But it's a disappointment for Lucas, for for me, for Stephane, for Edouard, the poor guy, who had surgery today and everything seems to have gone well, for Mattias, who is still in the race but without options... the entire Audi team was very excited and eager".

But the Matador pulled from memory to find the positive side: "It reminds me of the beginnings of Volkswagen, 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 such a car, difficult and with such a complex challenge as it is to win with him".

Sainz took full responsibility for today's accident. Credit: Red Bull(image above)

And more positive conclusions: the start of the race and the pace of the car: "We started the rally very well, but for us the broken kneecap was unexpected and left us a little out of place. It caught us at a time when we were leading the race. That circumstance upset us, but we had rhythm, I think we went well but things have not been good for us. The Dakar is a race that is won more by going defensive than by going on the attack".

As usual with him, after each Dakar Sainz reiterated his idea of reflecting for a while before deciding whether to continue (although his relationship with Audi lasts another year): "After the Dakar there is always a period of personal reflection, where one analyze everything. Go back home, think, recover in those two weeks that you always need after a Dakar and even more so if it has been a bit bumpy like this. We will also have to see what Audi wants to do, what plans it has for the future".

And as a final message, a message to the FIA and the organization of the Dakar: "In addition to reflection, there is also a time for analysis, to see where we have gone well, what we have lacked. I sincerely believe that there is a lot to analyze and not only by Audi, also by others, in that Balance of Performance you have to analyze many things".

Author: Enrique Naranjo