Spanish Carlos Sainz (Audi) took fourth Dakar, a edition in which he failed to take victory in any of the twelve stages but dominated from start to finish, leading throughout the second week. ¿So what were the keys to his victory?
Superiority in three important stages of Dakar
Sainz arrived three of the twelve stages underlined in red. It was a rock filled day between Al Ula and Al Henakiyah; the sixth is a 48-hour time trial stage in which runners enter the world’s largest dune desert, and the penultimate day, last Thursday, is another authentic stone marathon before reaching Yanbu.
He completed all three. The Madrid native finished second in the first heat, putting distance between himself and Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah (Prodrive), the champion of the previous two races and his biggest rival. Sainz finished 1 minute and 44 seconds behind the race winner, Belgian Guillaume de Mevius (Toyota), and was more than 12 minutes ahead of Swede Mattias Ekström (Audi), 20 minutes ahead of Frenchman Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive), and 22 minutes ahead. Ahead of Al-Attiyah and almost half an hour in is Frenchman Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi).
This gave him Confidence in Sainz, who came second overall in the 48-hour time trial, the queen stage of Dakar. On the first day of the two-day stage, Sainz beat Qatar by more than 25 minutes; This was a real advantage that allowed the Spaniard to become the interim leader in the general classification. On the second day of the stage, Sainz slowed down and finished second, nearly five minutes behind Loeb, although the Spaniard suffered a real blow in the general classification.
And the final show of force came last Thursday, when Sainz led the first eight stages of the penultimate stage, a 420-kilometre cobbled day in which most of his rivals suffered mechanical problems. Only a puncture stopped Sainz on a day that nearly claimed his fourth victory. victory in Dakar.
All your rivals’ problems
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All the misfortunes Sainz experienced in the past races were reflected on the Spanish pilot’s face in 2024. The Madrid native had no mechanical issues, although there are a few holes. On the other hand, almost all of its competitors experienced mechanical failures or their vehicles were directly destroyed. This is what happened to Saudi Yazeed Al Rajhi (Toyota), who crashed his car into the dunes while leading the general classification on the sixth stage and was unable to return to the race.
Next day, Al-AttiyahThe German pilot, who became Sainz’s biggest rival after Al Rajhi’s withdrawal, suffered a mechanical failure in his Audi car that caused him to lose more than an hour; The same thing that happened to the Swedish pilot Mattias Ekström (Audi) was stranded for over two hours, twenty minutes behind the Spaniard, and bid farewell to the chance of challenging for the general classification.
By the penultimate stage, Loeb was just 13 minutes behind Sainz. Broke French front suspension forkThis gave the Spaniard confidence on his way to his fourth Dakar.
Penalty for Loeb
When we look at the sixth day, no runner wanted to open the track in the 48-hour stage that took place in Empty Neighborhood, one of the most inhospitable areas of the world’s largest sand desert. Like this, All drivers lost some time on stage five not to be first and not to fall into tenth or eleventh place, thus enabling them to follow in the footsteps of those in front.
Sainz did this He stopped for a few moments to make sure he wouldn’t be the first one to cross the finish line, and so did Loeb.In his desire to not come first, he was handed a fifteen-minute penalty for failing to pass the ‘intermediate point’, one of the points at which Dakar timed drivers, which could have been very useful in the second week of the rally. As he battles Sainz for the lead.
Nasser on his own, Audi helping Sainz
Nasser Al-Attiyah’s help would have been even better for Loeb if those fifteen minutes had been good for him. But, After retiring from the stage for the second day in a row, the Qatari player chose not to leave to help his teammate..
Undoubtedly, he could accompany Loeb on the last three stages, especially this Thursday, when Loeb had to wait more than an hour for a Chinese driver in the same car to give him some tools that he did not have to fix the suspension. Then he arrived at the camp with three of his four tires flat and his spare tire gone. Al-Attiyah could play a key role in breaking the Loeb-Sainz feud on the French side.
If it didn’t exist There is no friendship between loeb and Nasser, The opposite happened between Sainz and his teammates Mattias Ekström and Stéphane Peterhansel. During the second week they both led the way on several occasions and ‘escorted’ him on others, so that Sainz had friendly hands to repair the vehicle in case of any problems.
For example, in the penultimate stage, the Madrid driver had no spare tire left, but he still went flat for the third time. So when he reached the finish line, he waited seven minutes for the Swedish Ekström, who gave him two wheels so that he would have no problems staying in the lead.
Great strategy
play with Strategy was the key to Audi’s ultimate victory. This move did not work for him in the prologue, where he wanted to finish between tenth and fifteenth places in order to start the next day with the others’ tracks. However, Sainz braked excessively and stopped too much, causing him to move beyond twentieth position.
He learned his lesson from that bad game where he stopped again in the fifth stage to avoid starting first, but the result was much better. As Al-Attiyah opened the circuit in the very difficult to navigate sand dune desert, Sainz was two minutes behind the lead car and immediately began to follow the lines and overtake the cars at the front of the stage by imitating braking moments. ended up on this screen.
He repeated this in the penultimate stage. native of Madrid Started ten minutes behind Loeb and six minutes ahead of Ekström. If the Frenchman broke down he would know immediately, if he needed a wheel he would only have to wait six minutes for the Swede to arrive. A strategy out of ten that documents Sainz’s leadership in the general classification.
All of this culminated in Sainz securing his fourth Dakar, a resounding victory, as the king of the rallies with a time of more than one hour and twenty minutes.