(From Saudi Arabia) Like those editions of the Catalunya Rally in which a small Carlos Sainz He was visiting his homonymous father on the date of the World Cup in the specialty, this Sunday he repeated that custom and for the first time he was able to go see him at a dakar rally. And, although he thought that he had been unlucky, the current pilot of Ferrari on the Formula 1 was a talisman for the Matador, who at 60 years of age won in stage 1 with the Audi hybrid and leads the general classification in Saudi Arabia.
Argentines Manu Andújar and Kevin Benavides shone in stage 1 of the Dakar Rally
In ATVs, Andújar won the stage and is second overall. In Motorcycles, Benavides was escort and march in that position in the global. Orly Terranova was fifth in Cars, where Carlos Sainz won and leads in the accumulated of the two days of the race
Sainz Junior surprised by arriving very early with his mother, Reyes Vazquez de Castro and your partner, isabel hernaez. Then he was with his father at the start of the timed section that was a round trip at Sea Camp, the first of the ten that will be the arrival and departure bases of the toughest race in the world that this year has two more stages than the previous one (14 out of 12 of 2022).
After sharing breakfast, the Matador’s son followed his father in the helicopter called November 1 and was able to see the route. Once the activity was over, the Scuderia runner approached the Audi sector and infobae He closely followed their steps and was able to photograph them. They told him that his father wanted to meet alone in his trailer. While Reyes and Isabel waited outside and then went to the Audi catering, Carlos entered and had a private chat with his father that lasted about ten minutes.
Later, he spoke to the media and revealed the fear he felt when he saw the arrest of the Audi RS Q e-tron E2. “It is the worst moment because it is the first time that I take a helicopter to follow my father in a Dakar. As soon as we left, we got into the helicopter, we went to look for him and when we found him we saw that he was standing still. I said ‘what’s going on here’. I don’t know if I gave him bad luck or what, but he recovered quickly. Then he started to attack and made up the time fast, but you can imagine the bad time he has had there, ”he said.
From winning three Dakar Rallies to becoming a father and playing in a rock band: the new life of Marcos Patronelli
He got married and enjoys his family. He remembered the best anecdotes of him: from tying a wheel with wire to having an accident and still being able to win. He made history with his brother Alejandro, with whom he plans to race again in 2024.
Sainz father and his navigator Lucas Cruz suffered a broken wheel and Carlos (h) revealed that the they changed in two minutes. Then the veteran from Madrid accelerated, faithful to his style, reduced the differences and ended up taking the first stage in which he won by 3h28m55s and in a definition for the heart attack he beat the Frenchman by just 10 seconds Sebastien Loeb (Prodrive prototype), who looms as the strongest rival of the Audi and Toyota drivers.
While Carlos is 28 years old and his contract with Ferrari will expire at the end of 2024. Although he has a rope for a while in the Máxima, he is already planning a possible landing in the Dakar Rally, because he liked the atmosphere. “For everything it seems to me that it is a magical place. I think that this bivouac (camp), the atmosphere that exists between teams and pilots. It is seen that it is a competitive environment, but also a super friendly, adventurous environment and I am liking it a lot. This morning I took a walk through the bivouac to see everything and I’m enjoying it a lot”, he confessed.
When asked if one day he could run the Dakar Rally, he replied that “if I’m here it’s because I like it, I’m interested and not just because my father is running. The Dakar is something that I have been following for a long time, since 2006, and 16 years have already passed. I wanted to come, but they were always on very bad dates, always at the end of the year, which is the only time I have to rest and not travel. This year, as the season ended earlier, I reserved January 1 to go to the Dakar”.
The incredible meeting of the Benavides brothers, Argentine figures in the Dakar Rally, with Julián Álvarez on a plane
Salteños are benchmarks in motorcycles. Kevin wants to repeat his 2021 triumph and Luciano wants to make a podium. In dialogue with Infobae they told how the moment was with the Spider and his feelings in the face of the toughest race in the world
While he revealed the privacy of the first contact with his father in 2023: “Today I had breakfast with him at 7.30 in his caravan and we had coffee together and I told him ‘what is the plan today?’ Tomorrow if it doesn’t start very soon I’ll be back. We will have another coffee and we will see what plan he has and how he looks at me because from how he looks at me I already know what he is going to do today”.
It was his second visit to his father in a Dakar Rally. “I was at a start in Lisbon and then due to an agenda item I could never accompany him. I would have liked to be with him when he raced in South America”, he told this medium.
Finally, although he clarified that by contract he cannot talk about F1, when asked if he expected it to be a good year with Ferrari, he assured that “we expect a good year and it has started very well. A beautiful January 1 for the Sainz family and we hope it will also be beautiful for the other Sainz and for Ferrari”.
Product of his victory in this initial stage Carlos Sainz Sr. leads the general classification. The driver who will turn 61 on April 12 will seek to make history and get the first win for a hybrid car in the Dakar Rally. At the moment he started off on the right foot and had an invaluable trophy on a family Sunday.
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