Sainz takes fourth Dakar title at 61

Spanish rally legend Carlos Sainz extended his record to become the oldest winner of the Dakar Rally last Friday and claimed his fourth victory in the car category a year after breaking his back.

It was also Audi's first Dakar title. All this at the age of 61.

His son, Formula One driver for Ferrari, Carlos Sainz Jr, was there to embrace him.

‘El Matador’ completed the two-week motorsport marathon to reach the finish in Yanbu on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast.

Honda rider Ricky Brabec (United States of America) won the motorcycle category for the second time while Cristina Gutierrez from Spain triumphed in the lightweight Challenger class to become only the second woman to take a title after Jutta Kleinschmidt from Germany in 2001.

Sainz finished one hour, 20 minutes and 25 seconds ahead of Belgium's Guillaume de Mevius, who made his debut for Overdrive Toyota, beating out France's Sebastien Loeb, a nine-time world rally champion, who took third overall.

Loeb was Sainz's biggest rival until mechanical problems on Thursday, but he still wrapped up with a fifth stage win in his Prodrive Hunter for team Bahrain Raid Xtreme.



Electric drivetrain

Audi are the first to win with a car powered by an electric drivetrain.

The Audi RS Q e-tron uses an energy converter on its two-litre, four-cylinder turbo engine to charge the car's high-voltage battery while driving. "This car is so special, it’s so difficult to manage, it has been so difficult to make it work... I'm so happy for Audi," Sainz said according to a Reuters report.

He held the lead from stage six, after Saudi driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi crashed out.

"To be here with my age and to stay at the level, you need to work a lot before. It's not coming just like that. It shows that when you work hard, normally it pays off," he told Reuters. The legend was previously the 1990 and 1992 world rally champion.

"At the moment I want to enjoy this victory and I will think about my future in the next weeks and we will see," he said.

Sainz retired from last year's event after fracturing a pair of vertebrae in a crash.

The Spaniard has now won the Dakar with four different manufacturers - Volkswagen in 2010, Peugeot in 2018 and Mini in 2020, and he already held the previous record as the oldest winner at 57.

Along with co-driver Lucas Cruz, Sainz was able to repeat the feat this time without winning any of the individual stages. A little help from friends and team-mates was invaluable as Stephane Peterhansel and Mattias Ekstrom provided extra spare tyres after going out of contention themselves.

The victory pulled Sainz level with Finnish great Ari Vatanen in the all-time rankings, with only Al-Attiyah (five) and Peterhansel (eight) winning more, according to Reuters.

Brabec finished 10 minutes and 53 seconds clear of Motswana hero Ross Branch, and French rider Adrien van Beveren in third.

"A little bit different this one. I feel like this was more earned. This was a lot tougher. In 2020, we had a big gap from the get-go. Here, I think me and Ross spent three days with a couple of seconds difference," Brabec told Reuters.

Argentina's Manuel Andujar won the quad category while Czech driver Martin Macik took the truck title in his Iveco. France's Xavier de Soultrait was the SSV (side-by-side) champion.

The historic rally started in 1978 as a race from Paris across the Sahara to the Senegalese capital, but was moved to South America in 2009 for security reasons.

One of the greatest challenges in motorsport, with competitors battling towering desert dunes and inhospitable terrain, it moved to Saudi Arabia in 2020 and is now the flagship of the FIA world rally-raid championship, according to Reuters.