Carlos Sainz won the Dakar for the fourth time

The Dakar rally raid ended in Saudi Arabia, which took place according to a very dramatic scenario, and the failure that befell Sébastien Loeb, one of the main contenders for victory, yesterday deprived the supermarathon of a beautiful ending.

But the most important result is that 61-year-old Carlos Sainz won this difficult race for the fourth time – and this is the first success of the Audi Sport factory team.

We will tell you about the rest of the results of the rally raid a little later, but for now we give the floor to the winner.

Carlos Sainz: “This success means that if you work hard and believe in yourself, if you have a good team and are surrounded by good people, it is all worth it.

We have a very special machine that is very difficult to handle; it is very difficult to make it work efficiently. But I’m very happy for Audi, because we reached the finish of the race and won it. I think the source of this energy is my passion for success.

Of course, you have to believe in yourself that you can still go fast, but it’s also important to know that a lot of work has been done behind the scenes. To be successful at my age and maintain a high level requires careful preparation.

For now I just want to enjoy this victory and then think about the future in the coming weeks. Let’s see what awaits me. I think yesterday was very important for this victory, although the right approach from the very beginning is important.

There were many favorites, but as always in Dakar someone faces problems. I think we kept a very good pace, we had the right tactics and the team gave us great support.”