The 61-year-old Spaniard rally champion — Carlos Sainz, Sr. — has received his fourth (and Audi’s first) Dakar in his seventeenth yr competing within the mythical match. This yr he received the race in a singular method, with out taking a unmarried degree victory, and working a constantly fast and somewhat trouble-free match. Sainz and co-driver Lucas Cruz completed the development after a complete of 48 hours quarter-hour and 18 seconds of degree time, striking them an hour and twenty mins forward of the Overdrive Toyota of Guillaume de Mevius, whilst Sebastien Loeb got here 3rd in his Prodrive system.

Sainz received the lead of the rally on the shut of degree 2, and kind of retained his lead around the 14-day wasteland race. He confronted stiff festival from Loeb for the whole lot of the development till Thursday noticed Loeb lose an hour within the penultimate degree with broken suspension, shedding him out of competition.

This victory places Sainz a few of the higher echelon of Dakar competition, securing him because the oldest victor within the rally’s historical past, and tying him for 3rd total within the checklist of maximum a hit drivers on the rally with Ari Vatanen. His 4 victories nonetheless pales compared to Stéphane Peterhansel’s 8 automobile victories and 6 motorbike wins. Curiously, that is Sainz’ fourth win with 4 other producers, the others being Volkswagen, Peugeot, and Mini.

Audi entered the Dakar festival with its 671 horsepower RS Q E-Tron plug-in hybrid electrical racer again in 2022. The auto includes a trio of electrical motors cribbed from Audi’s now-dead Method E program, and a two-liter turbocharged inline four-cylinder gasoline-powered racing engine taken from Audi’s now-dead DTM program. That gas engine acts solely as a generator, making electrical energy for the axle motors to deploy. It’s a truly trick gadget, and distinctive amongst Dakar competition.

“That used to be an awesome crew efficiency,” mentioned Head of Audi Motorsport Rolf Michl. “Everybody pulled in combination to make this ancient end result imaginable for Audi. A large thanks to this excellent crew. As of late we’ve written a brand new bankruptcy for Audi, but in addition within the historical past of the Dakar Rally.”

Thankfully for Audi it controlled to win a Dakar rally for all its effort sooner than killing off the wasteland racing program (I’m sensing a development right here) with the intention to center of attention on its Method 1 efforts in 2026.

Sainz had an extended and storied historical past as a global rally championship driving force, profitable the 1990 and 1992 titles for Toyota. When he moved to Rally Raid riding in 2006, he used to be already 44 years outdated. In 2008 he received the Central Ecu rally, which took where of the Dakar rally that yr, moved because of the 2007 deaths of French vacationers in Mauritania. In 2010 he received his first Dakar correct, down in South The us, sooner than profitable once more in 2018, 2020, and this yr. Of his 17 makes an attempt, seven have led to a DNF, whilst some other seven have ended with Sainz at the podium. Obviously he’s lovely excellent at this wasteland racing factor.