Carlos Sainz, at 61, again became the champion of the Dakar Rally.

On Friday, the famous Spanish racer Carlos Sainz Sr. became the winner of the Dakar, the most prestigious rally raid in the world. This is already his fourth title. It is notable primarily for the fact that Sainz is already 61 years old. At such an advanced age, no one has won the Dakar. Sainz’s main competitor during this raid, World Rally Championship legend Sebastien Lob, dropped out of the fight for the title at the penultimate stage, having encountered technical problems. American Ricky Brabec was first in the motorcycle class. Martin Macik was the fastest on the truck.

Carlos Sainz is an amazing athlete. He spent almost two decades in classic rallying, where he twice became world champion. That is, he proved everything to everyone. But he also decided to conquer the Dakar, which he managed to do three times before Friday. It is noteworthy that the Spaniard won the Dakar, each time competing for new teams: for Volkswagen in 2010, Peugeot in 2018 and Mini in 2020.

Sainz entered this year’s race in an Audi RS Q e-tron. This alone gave many reasons to doubt the Spaniard’s prospects. The fact is that this car is a hybrid, and so far in extreme conditions, of which there is no shortage in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, they have been consistently inferior to classical schemes with an internal combustion engine. There was one more point that made it possible to stand against Sainz – his age. The Spaniard is already 61 years old.

The history of world sports knows examples when older athletes took part in competitions, but usually these were disciplines that did not require excessive physical exertion from the athlete, such as billiards, archery or rifle shooting, etc.

However, a case was recorded when a 91-year-old driver entered the track of a stage of the World Rally Championship. This is the Polish athlete Sobeslaw Zasada, who took part in the Kenyan stage of the World Championships in 2021.

It turned out, however, not very well: Zasada constantly crashed into obstacles and was unable to complete the race. But someone like Sainz, in his seventh decade of life, tearing apart his competitors has never happened before.

Although many will probably argue about “tore”. “Matador” took the current “Dakar” purely from experience, following the principle of “hurry up slowly”. He didn’t win a single stage. But he maintained a consistently high pace and avoided mistakes. A seemingly simple tactic, but requiring a lot of experience, gave an amazing result. After the sixth stage, Sainz took the lead. Somewhere nearby, minutes behind, was a driver no less respected in the world of motorsport, Sebastien Lob (considered the favorite of the rally raid, five-time Dakar winner Nasser al-Attiya dropped out of the race for the title after the eighth stage, having encountered technical problems) . The nine-time world rally champion, which is a record figure, has been trying to add the Dakar champion cup to his collection of titles since 2016. But, apparently, it was destined for him to be second best in this race. Or even the third.

The last race for Lob actually ended at the penultimate stage.

As the racer himself said, he hit a rock “hidden” under the sand, broke the suspension arm of his Hunter, and even thought about retiring from the race. A Chinese crew from the same team passing by gave him the required spare part, but the loss of more than an hour deprived the Frenchman of his chances not even for the title, but at least for second place: he also let the Belgian Guillaume de Mevius (Toyota) go ahead. Well, Sainz confidently completed the last stage and became the oldest winner of the Dakar. By the way, he improved the record that belonged to him.

In the motorcycle class, which is usually the most intriguing, this time everything went a little too calmly. The winner was Ricky Brabec (Honda). This is the American’s second Dakar title. He was almost 11 minutes ahead of his closest pursuer, Ross Branch from Botswana on Hero. A monstrous gap for a motorcycle class.

Finally, in the truck class, in which the competition takes place without the legendary KAMAZ-master team (it has won 19 Dakars), the winner was the Czech Martin Macik (Iveco). He was more than two hours ahead of his compatriot Ales Loprais (Praga).

Alexander Petrov