Dakar 2023 – Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz retire due to accident

Definitely, the Dakar Rally 2023 is a real ordeal for the Audi Sport clan, despite having arrived in Saudi Arabia as the big favorite. Four days later the worrying accident of Stéphane Peterhansel and the injury of his navigator Édouard Boulanger, it is the turn of another expert in rally-raid to leave the bivouac through the small door: Carlos Sainz.

Barely five kilometers after the start of the ninth stage between Riyadh and Haradh this Tuesday, January 10, Carlos Sainz and his co-driver Lucas Cruz made a mistake aboard their Audi RS Q e-tron hybrid:

🎥 First footage of @CSainz_oficial and @ LucasCruz74's crash, after only 6km in the special. 🚗# Dakar2023 pic.twitter.com/se7SKV27YD

- DAKAR RALLY (@dakar) January 10, 2023

The three-time Spanish winner, victorious in the first stage of this Dakar 2023, initially complained of chest pain on his right side, and agreed to be airlifted to a hospital in Riyadh, before suddenly deciding to return near his bruised animal to try to continue the race.

“I was in pain, I asked the doctor to wait a bit to see if the pain would go away. The truth is that he was very careful and insisted that, from his point of view, we go to the hospital. After spending 20 minutes or half an hour arguing, he finally insisted. And after 10 minutes in the helicopter, the pilot had to land because he could not fly and at the same time enter the coordinates of the hospital into his GPS,” explained Carlos Sainz this Tuesday evening at the bivouac. 

“That's when the helicopter landed and I turned around and said, 'I want to try to take the car to the bivouac.' And tonight, I feel better and it hurts less... But that's all there was to do, honestly. I think it's okay to try to bring the car and try to continue. And that's what we've done. The mechanics repaired it on site, we came back here (to the bivouac), but when we arrived, the car was beyond repair. »

Lamentably, in the accident, the car suffered serious damage and could not be repaired. With great weight we have to abandon it @dakar, but the important thing is that it is not serious. Gracias @ LucasCruz74 y @audisport for all work and dedication. # Dakar2023 pic.twitter.com/AfTfnBZlus

- Carlos Sainz (@CSainz_oficial) January 10, 2023

Unfortunately, the damage suffered by the German hybrid 4x4 is such that Sainz-Cruz will not be able to resume the Dakar 2023 on Wednesday January 11. In the general classification, the Spanish crew were already out of the running for the final victory anyway, due to an accident in the sixth stage and several mechanical problems. They were 100th, more than 29 hours behind the leaders Nasser Al-Attiyah-Mathieu Baumel (Toyota).

There is therefore only one Audi RS Q e-tron left in the race at the end of this ninth stage, that of the Swedes Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist, rejected to the depths of the general classification (27th at 7h01'11").