Carlos Sainz: “You hate the Dakar and you love it”

Carlos Sainz (April 12, 1962, Madrid) wore a racing suit. It was a day off, but a day off, quite a bit. He attended the press present in the bivouac and worked with his team until the end to start stage 9 of the Dakar 2023 with the aim of winning as many stages as possible. In between so much work, he found a place to serve MD at a table located outside the tent. We suggest you jump back 30 years, when you won your second World Rally Championship title with an incredible late-course comeback, when you thought your chances were almost gone. Carlos accepted with a smile his eyes far from the tiredness he felt from the Dakarian adventure.

30 years later, it’s still here. Who will tell him?

The truth is yes (laughs). If at that moment you had asked me what I would be doing in 30 years, the Dakar would certainly not have made it on the list. Certainly not. At that time I had no interest. My first Dakar Colim (McRae) has been doing it for a year and he really told me that he enjoyed it and that it was a worthwhile race.

How do you remember that second title?

It was a year that we did not expect, because we started badly, the car was not quite right, and yet we had a very good end of the year and we got the second title last year, winning many rally, we lost the title in the last race. This is a small compensation from last year. It has a final comeback, with Catalunya… it’s the complete opposite of last season. We lost it unfairly, and that year we won in a last hurray that we didn’t expect.

How does it feel to relive those moments now?

Those images come to me from time to time, I remember a lot about Ove Anderson (former Toyota group director) who is not with us now, about the whole Toyota team, having fun, enjoying a lot with Luis (Moya, his co-pilot at the time), to live a special moment in our lives.

30 years later, here it is. How do you prepare at age 60 to be at your best for a tough, rocky, bumpy race?

I tackle it first with great enthusiasm, great desire and great desire. That is probably the best formula to prepare well. I am happy so far with our performance in Dakar. Obviously, I’m not happy with what happened in the accident (on stage 6, which left him out of the fight), but I honestly think that we are having a good rally at the speed level, in the long stages I am feeling well. and I’m getting better. It also helps me not get too hot and that is noticeable. We prepared well and it shows.

How was the preparation day for Carlos before the Dakar? 3 hours in the gym a day?

No! (laughs). You have to regulate properly. I have a plan made to me by the same coach who has been taking me since I started in Dakar, where there is an aerobic part and a bodybuilding part. I mix it up and increase the training load as the rally approaches. There is a method, a system behind it, I do my stress tests, I measure which ranges I need to train, I compare with previous years, this year the stress test came out better and better than last year. And that gives you joy.

Does your mind tell you that you don’t want to stop running because you love what you’re doing, or are you sometimes just too lazy to go to the gym?

nerd Prep discipline costs more each year because you have a birthday and you spend more on training and recovery. But in the end what rules is the clock. If I come here and my teammates are always ahead because they are younger, I’m not winning stages and I’m not fighting for stages… it means maybe it’s time to think about something else. But I feel that the team is happy with my work, the rhythm is good, the weather is good… and it’s true that this year Stéphane (Peterhansel) and I had a double accident, but the next day Mattias (Ekström, the other Audi driver) and this year has not been Audi’s year. But Loeb also flipped, as did Chicherit. Because the Dakar is not easy.

Peterhansel said he wants to retire victorious. Is that your goal?

My goal is to win. Then I will think about what to do.

How can you think outside of the race?

I’m thinking of devoting all my passion and all my motivation to something that makes me happy. I will continue to be a driver, I will continue to do a classic race or a rally that I feel, in a novice and calm way. And I think I like cars so much that my life has always been related to the motor world, either through Carlos Jr. or by a future team. I do not know.

You spend a large part of the year with your son Carlos in F1. What will he take from that world and from Dakar?

They are two opposite worlds. I stay in my world, which is rallies and rally-raids. I love F1, it’s fun to follow my son, but I also rally.

It is noteworthy that after a severe accident, with Peterhansel’s co-driver suffered a fractured vertebra and he lost consciousness and memory for a while. People should think you are made of different material.

The other day we experienced a situation that I have never experienced before and it was difficult, but Edouard (Boulanger, Peterhansel’s co-driver) will recover and Stéphane will be fine and we will be fine, which could be more serious.

How is your hand, which was bandaged yesterday, and your neck?

I was hurting, but nothing was going to stop me from continuing at the pace I was going. Now the goal is to try to win as many stages as possible.

How did someone like you get over a stage 6 crash, knowing there was more than a week left in the race and he was out of options? Mentally you must want to go home at that moment and it must hurt so bad.

Too much pain, too much. Because all the work of the year you send with a stroke of the pen to the trash. But the Dakar is like that, and in this case it didn’t just happen to me, to the whole team. But hey, the only thing left is to not give up and keep going.

In those moments, does all the experience accumulated over so many years help you?

It definitely helps me. I know that there is always a day later and a second chance, although when you are a veteran, logically you have very little left.

A motorsport star like you didn’t drop the stop rings to help your teammate Ekström on stage 7, handing him the parts for his car and staying in the desert while waiting for the truck.

I did what Mattias would have done to me. We were out of the race, with no options, and he still had options. When I saw the mess, nothing could be done. But at least he didn’t lose as much time as if he had to wait for the truck.

What is it about Dakar that gets you so hooked?

The difficulty and the challenge. You know it’s something special, that puts you to the limit, and seeing that the person likes to play there to the limit.

Apart from enjoying yourself, you are also suffering.

Man! And I’m suffering so much here! Insurance. You hate the Dakar and you love it. I think it’s so hard that when you win it and taste success in this race, you want to try again.

Alonso was also hooked on this race. He wants to come back in a few years. Do you think you can win?

It’s not easy, but Fernando has the ability to learn quickly, for sure.

Your engineers say that when you finish a Dakar, the next day you call them to improve things. He never rests. Are we at the point after a stage 7 accident?

Yes, we are in a moment of testing, of testing, of everything that you probably did not dare to do when fighting for the race. Now is the time to do it.

If you manage to win another Dakar with Audi in the future, would this be your greatest sporting achievement?

If Audi manages to win the Dakar with this car, it doesn’t matter who wins it, it’s a goal for everyone, for all drivers and engineers. It’s incredible, but we’re still a long way off.

It will be special because of the amount of time he put into developing a car with such complex technology.

We spent a lot of time here. Above all, it was a type of work that I had not been used to until now. The challenge is huge and it is visible and I hope that people assess the difficulty of this car, the project and put this car in the Dakar to try to win the Dakar.

A dream?

I have no dreams. I have one goal now, to win the Dakar again.

Thank you very much, Carlos

no thanks to you