The Spanish driver has made history again at 61 years old. Carlos Sainz He won his fourth Paris-Dakar this Friday when he reached the finish line accompanied by his co-driver, Lucas Cruz. The team and family were waiting for him there, happy and very excited. The winner's wife and children had traveled to Saudi Arabia hours before to celebrate this great achievement and it was his son, Carlos, who was the first to hug his father through tears.
The Arab city of Yanbu has become the scene of a party. Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz entered the finish line on the hood of their Audi and did so happily, although without hiding their fatigue and wear after 14 days of competition. The team shouted and jumped for joy while Carlos Sainz merged in an emotional hug with his family: first his son Carlos, then his daughters Ana and Blanca (“Ana, don't cry because you make me cry”) and finally his wife, Reyes: “You won't say that we haven't come to see you,” she proudly told the champion.
A few minutes before the reunion, Carlos Sainz Jr. praised his father's work and effort: “You can't imagine the pride of a father, of a husband, of everything. Here are all his best friends, not just me, and there is all the people who love him and encourage him at every moment,” he said excitedly. “It has been a very long Dakar, a very tough Dakar with all types of terrain, all types of stages, some new ones like the 48-hour one, the marathon that was tough. There has been everything, and Carlos Sainz has known how to overcome it all. In The key stages are also where he has done best, and that shows you that he has come very well prepared, very motivated and they have nailed it. Proudly, he concluded: “The Dakar has been perfect, he has done the most intelligent Dakar that I have seen him do in my life. He has managed it perfectly and has shown that he also has experience.”
Sainz has broken his own record as the oldest car driver to achieve victory (the absolute record is held by Josef Machacek, winner of the light prototype category in 2021 at 63 years old) and is also the first to achieve four wins with four different manufacturers: Volkswagen in 2010, in 2018 with Peugeot, in 2020 with Mini and this time, in the 46th edition, with Audi. For the German house it is the first victory in the desert and also the last, as it is retiring to focus on Formula 1. They have also done it with an Audi RS Q e-tron, a hybrid prototype with electric motorization, the first in the history of the Dakar.
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