Carlos Sainz, who until recently was considered one of the favorites of the Dakar rally raid, continues to have problems and we already mentioned that he was fined for speeding today.
It looked like the four-time winner of Sunday’s famed marathon could recover at least partially from the troubles he had faced in the previous days, and take some moral satisfaction from winning stage 8 of the rally-raid . Sainz did show the best time, but was then stripped of first place, which was eventually inherited by Sebastien Loeb.
However, the Frenchman could very well have won today’s stage, were it not for the flat tire and the inevitable loss of time that comes with replacing the wheel with his Prodrive Hunter. At least Carlos Sainz didn’t have such a problem, which doesn’t cheer him up too much, though.
“We got through this stage normally and without much effort and at least we were able to have some fun,” said the Spanish rider. – We started at the very end, but after the rain there was no dust. If this were not the case, it would have been much more difficult.
But I think the new run order rule needs to be modified. After all, previously the race favorites, if they had problems in the previous stage, immediately got a starting position of no lower than 15th, but according to the current rules our team started 39th and 40th for two days. This is bad for us, but also for others.
The first week of the Dakar was a disappointment, the whole Audi team has a lot of problems. We are just unlucky, but there is no choice – we have to keep attacking. I think I’m lucky to be moving at all after all that’s happened.”
It’s worth saying a few words about how Sunday’s fight went in other categories.
In the two-wheel class, American Mason Klein, a rider for the factory KTM team, was the fastest to cross the finish line, but suffered the same fate as Carlos Sainz – losing his win to a penalty. And on the first line of Sunday protocol was Ross Branch – he is from Botswana and performs on an Indian-made Hero 450 Rally motorcycle.
In the ATV category, Argentinian Manuel Andujar was the best today – he rides a Yamaha Raptor 700 and this is his second victory in the 2023 Dakar.
In the T3 class (light SUVs), the Portuguese crew of Joao Ferreira and Felipe Palmeiro excelled – they are Dakar debutants, they drive a Yamaha X-RAID YXZ 1000 R, and for them, of course, this is a great result that will give them strength.
In the “junior” T4 category, Argentina’s Jeremy Ferioli and Pedro Rinaldi of the South Racing Can-Am team were the first to finish, but I would like to point out separately the international duet of Yasir Seydan, a driver from Saudi Arabia, and his co-driver, our compatriot Alexei Kuzmich, who will fly the flag of Egypt this year. On Sunday, they coped well with the task and showed the second result.
Finally, in the cargo class today’s victory went to the Czech trio of Martin Macik, Frantisek Tomasek and David Svanda. They will be driving an Iveco Powerstar – unlike the other crew from the Czech Republic, who remain in the lead in the T5 category after the first week of the rally-raid. We are talking about Ales Loprais and his teammates, who prefer Praga trucks from year to year, and they prepare them for races themselves, more precisely, the InstaForex Loprais Praga team is officially engaged in this.
Tomorrow, all Dakar participants will have a rest day, which they will spend in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
