Can you be proud of a Dakar in which you finish three and a half hours behind the winner? It can. Of course, it goes without saying that it is far from ideal and the ambitions of a three-time desert winner like Carlos Sainz, but there are reasons to be and, in the same way, to look to the future with optimism. After overcoming the initial setback caused by what he considered, like so many others, a mistake by the road book about which enough has already been said, andhe man from Madrid has found a hybrid Audi that has exceeded his expectations.
The team with the four rings arrived with the logical doubts of someone who debuts on a big date without having competed before, like someone who goes to the prom with nothing more than having rehearsed in front of a mirror at home. You expose yourself to failure. That is why what they have found on the ground leaves them with such positive conclusions. Because, once they got past the rut where their shocks broke often, which they fixed by sending in new parts on the rest day that worked, there was more good news than bad.
A balance of four victories, two for Sainz (the first and most historic, and the most difficult stage) and one for each of his teammates Peterhansel and Ekstrom, It’s outstanding for a rookie team. If the RS Q e-tron is capable of performing like this in its first year, which it will not be able to do in a second when surely they will have worked on one of their main pending tasks and in which the Madrid native will be more on top, reduce as much as possible the 200 extra kilos that are left over. There are no miracle diets, but they are effective.
Lucas Cruz’s perspective
The same “positive” assessment of the project that Carlos made over the days, is made by his right hand, Lucas Cruz. “It is the first year of a new project and the three cars finish, it is to be happy, especially for what we have learned in these twelve days of racing. Good conclusions can be drawn from the state in which the car is and on what line we have to continue working”, analyzed the co-driver of the Audi 202 with the Spanish press at the end of the final stage of the Dakar.
The Catalan celebrates the harvest of victories, but also gives it relative importance because he aims for the highest: “What you have to do is reach the end and win. The statistics say that the one who wins the most specials is not the one who wins the Dakar, we have to apply this to ourselves a little and use it for the future”. That is the mentality with which they will have to face the next challenge in which both are already beginning to think: “One more year and there are very few days left to start working on the 2023 objective”. So far, they have laid a good foundation.