The Dakar is unforgiving even for the best. Four-time rally winner and defending champion Carlos Sainz was forced to retire after the second stage. He rolled over this Sunday and the damage to his car was too significant.
Carlos Sainz, four-time winner of the Dakar and defending champion, had to abandon Monday evening at the end of the 2nd stage of the rally raid organized in Saudi Arabia, a marathon stage spread over two days, announced the race management. “The end of the adventure for the four-time Dakar winner and defending champion, Carlos Sainz, and his co-driver Lucas Cruz. See you soon, King Carlos,” tweeted the rally management on its X account.
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Having rolled over on Sunday at km 327, during the first part of the stage, the 62-year-old Spanish veteran managed to reach the finish line on Monday at the wheel of his very damaged Ford Raptor with more than an hour and a half to spare. behind the winner, the young Lithuanian Rokas Baciuska.
“We must therefore withdraw from the rally”
“El Matador” and his co-pilot had spent a large part of the previous evening patching up their car, whose hood, windshield and roof were torn off in their rollover, leaving the passenger compartment and all the mechanics exposed. “It’s not ideal. We rolled over on a dune. The car is a little damaged and so are we,” he said on Sunday.
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After the finish on Monday evening, a check by his M-Ford team and the FIA showed that the car was not fit to continue. “The deformation of his roll bar forced him to leave the Dakar,” added the race organizers.
In a video published in the evening on his X account, the Spanish driver assured that his team could have repaired this rollbar. “It is very easy to repair, and the team would have had no difficulty in doing so (…) But unfortunately, the FIA rules do not allow it, and therefore we have to withdraw from the rally,” he declared, expressing his disappointment and frustration at having to give up so early in the Dakar.
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Carlos Sainz was one of the favorites for the race, which he won four times, each time for a different brand (Volkswagen in 2010, Peugeot in 2018, Mini in 2020 and Audi 2024). Double WRC world rally champion in 1990 and 1992, the Madrilenian was racing for Ford this year.
