Sainz struggles in “very difficult to guess” and “pure” opening stage of Dakar

Carlos Sainz Sr admitted that he struggled to grasp Saturday’s opening stage of the Dakar Rally, saying it was “very tough to guess” and extra akin to the occasion’s authentic roots.

Main Ford’s assault within the 431km check round Bisha in Saudi Arabia, reigning champion Sainz suffered an early setback when he misplaced time with a puncture on his new Raptor T1+.

The issues had been difficult by the truth that Saturday’s check preceded the all-important 48-hour marathon stage, so there was no incentive for drivers to complete on the entrance and be the primary to come across the terrain.

Like a number of of his rivals, Sainz too purposely slowed down within the closing 80km in direction of the end line to be able to lose as many positions as attainable and enhance his prospects for Sunday.

Finally, he was labeled in seventh, 3m17s behind Toyota driver Seth Quintero who was elevated to first after being awarded additional time for serving to stranded Century driver Laia Sainz.

However given the robust nature of the stage, and the truth that a number of of his rivals secured extra beneficial beginning positions for the marathon stage, Sainz conceded that it was a troublesome opening day.

“It was a primary stage that was fairly vital, fairly a Dakar stage, pure Dakar, with a little bit of every thing,” the Spaniard advised reporters together with Motorsport.com.

Element of automotive #225 Ford M-Sport Ford: Carlos Sainz, Lucas Cruz

Picture by: Crimson Bull Content material Pool

“You may see that on this space there’s plenty of vegetation, and the reality is that the vehicles have arrived very broken, it’s tough to not contact you with something, so I’ve punctured.

“I assumed that with that point and the tempo I used to be on I might give myself a closing place additional again than I had, however it’s very tough to guess, very tough to get it proper, I am going to take it with no consideration.”

Dacia’s Nasser Al-Attiyah fully stopped on the street for nearly 10 minutes to be able to drop positions, finally ending up twentieth within the timesheets.

This implies the Qatari gained’t have to comb the street for his rivals within the near-1000km check overlaying Sunday and Monday, whereas additionally having a visible support within the type of the tracks laid out by different drivers.

Sainz revealed that he might have put collectively a greater technique for the opening phase of Dakar, with organisers having shifted the marathon stage from week two to the start of the occasion in 2025.

“I might have favored to start out, at the very least fifteenth, however it’s not simple to get the technique proper, and perhaps we thought we had been going to be additional behind going to date forward at the moment,” he defined.

#225 Ford M-Sport Ford: Carlos Sainz, Lucas Cruz

Picture by: Crimson Bull Content material Pool

Sainz additionally misplaced a navigational pill throughout the stage, which meant that he was having to depend on a secondary system to search out his approach via the desert.

”It made the stage extra difficult, extra traumatic, we didn’t have the Sentinel [safety feature to avoid collisions],” the 62-year-old mentioned.

“We had the second pill, however the Sentinel was not linked to that pill after which the puncture additionally threw us off a bit, we didn’t know the way a lot we had misplaced.”

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