Carlos Sainz has lived a first week of the Dakar on a roller coaster, which in the end has delayed him from the fight for the first positions of the general classification. The victory in stage three, the first for the new Audi RS Q e-tron, was the most positive point, which when analyzing it must be combined with the two hours it lost in the first stage due to navigation and road problems. reliability in the suspensions that delayed him definitively in stage five and six.
The Madrid-born, winner of the Dakar three times and making his debut with Audi in this edition, now faces the second week of the race with different perspectives. Almost four hours behind the leader, Carlos and his team will focus on improving performance stage by stage, accumulating experience and trying to solve the lack of reliability that the car has had. Olivier Hoffmann, Audi Vice President, greeted you warmly at the camp yesterday.
What balance would you make of the first week?
It has been tough, starting with what happened the first day, which was unacceptable. Looking at it cold, it is clear that the road book had an error and that no measures have been taken to cancel that section seems very serious and something to look to the future because they are things that cannot be. The taste is bittersweet.
Unexpected problems
Are you caught off guard by the problems they are having?
I’m happy, except for the problems. We have had them where we least expected and believed that we would have them in another part of the car, such as the software, battery, etc., and in the end we are having mishaps in a shock that we should not have. There is a week ahead, which I hope will be very different from the first.
What is the lack of reliability?
In the tests we had not had any problems. It’s fine to do a lot of tests, but you don’t demand 100% of the car either and in the end the competition is the cotton test, there are a hundred thousand different situations. Now is the time for all things to come out and prepare ourselves as best we can for the future.
REVIEW A WEEK
Not all are problems. The car has potential and proof of this was his victory on the third stage, Carlos’ 40th on the Dakar. What happened the first day with the navigation?
I have no doubt that the roadbook was wrong and I think the race should have stopped at the previous waypoint. From there, I turn the page.
Are you satisfied with the behavior of the car?
You have to be happy because without having done a race, reaching the Dakar, winning a stage and especially when we have no problems we are always close to the top positions. We are aware that there are certain handicaps to be polished, but I feel that the test would have to start tomorrow and my approach is to try to be very competitive in this second week, keep learning and do my best. We miss that first race that could not be done before the Dakar.
What grade do you give it?
A remarkable. If we analyze the problems we see that they have been in an area of the car that is out of electrification. We have had problems with the shock absorbers, perhaps caused by the weight of the vehicle and that we had not had in the tests. Also other small problems, such as a bearing, high temperature, but this would have come to light with just one race.
Are the shock absorber problems fixed?
Supossely Yes. Cross our fingers. The problem I had in the sixth stage with the shock was a mounting problem that has nothing to do with the one from previous days.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.