Dakar 2024 – Stéphane Peterhansel details Audi’s plan to take Carlos Sainz to victory

On the 9th stage of the Dakar Rally 2024, the three Audi RS Q e-tron E2 hybrids drove in rows so tight that their icons overlapped on the live mapping. They arrived almost at the same time at the bivouac in Al-Ula (Saudi Arabia) this Tuesday, January 16, and followed to the letter the plan determined by Sven Quandt, the boss of Audi Sport in rally-raid.

What was he? Support as best as possible Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz, leaders of the event with 20 minutes ahead of Sébastien Loeb and Fabian Lurquin (Bahrain Raid Xtreme). Objective achieved on this stage as Stéphane Peterhansel, converted to a water carrier, explained to us.

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" This is completely normal. I've had so many opportunities to be at the front of a race and have my teammates support me so that I win, that today I'm not frustrated. I was upset to have had mechanical problems in the 48 Hours. On the contrary, I'm happy to do it for Carlos, who is having a great race. If we can do our part, that would be nice. »

 

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The man with 14 Dakar successes, however, does not expect Wednesday's special to unfold in the same way. “We couldn’t do much better in terms of strategy than today. We will start quite far behind him tomorrow (Wednesday). It's super complicated. We waited for him for 6 minutes, we ended up 6’20” from him, the 20 seconds is the distance from the dust (while the dust clears. Editor’s note). Finishing 6’20” behind Carlos, lots of drivers got between us. Tomorrow we will be a little far away. You will have to drive to get closer to Carlos, and be there in case of problems. »

The co-record holder for stage victories in the Dakar by car (50) will therefore fight to catch up with his Spanish teammate. “Theoretically, tomorrow (Wednesday) there is a chance that we will come back on him and finish in front of him during the special. The day after tomorrow, I could stop, wait for him and leave behind him. These are strategies that must be updated at the end of each stage, depending on the positions in the ranking. »

Until he returns in the wake of his leader, Stéphane Peterhansel knows that the Madrilenian could lose a few minutes in finding his way. “It was Carlos who did all the navigation work. At times, you could see that he was making small mistakes. But it’s always easier to see it from behind, we don’t have the stress. He sometimes went in the wrong direction even though we knew it was somewhere else. We had no way of warning him. »