Sainz: “It was a sleepless movie”

“It was a movie that didn’t let me sleep”That’s how he defined Carlos Sainz He had a problem with his patella in Stage 3, which took him 33 minutes to fix, but he believes this could have been done faster and better. He decided to lift the car by placing his wheels on a stone as the hydraulic jack was not working, which caused the second puncture.

“I drilled a hole in the other when I did that. One of the screws screwed in during the repair and when I tried to remove the wheel from the second puncture there was a screw that I couldn’t remove. The wheel wrench was also broken. I had to wait until Ekstrom was able to change it.”, he pointed out with regret what had happened. In total, he gave up 56 minutes against the stage winner and 35 minutes against Al-Attiyah, making him 33 minutes overall now. Carlos believes it will be “difficult” to reduce that time because of Nasser, and that it will be more difficult to make a difference in the dunes going forward, but he believes the rally will continue this flow of starts, every day. I’m sure it will last like a surprise. , no more setbacks. Sainz continues to attack. Nothing to hold. “Now we have to change our strategy and continue to attack, but in this way we will buy tickets so that more can happen. But we are going to try and it is Not for us. “Matador”, reminds us that we still have a long rally ahead of us in the Spanish press.

First issue, with wheel ball joint

“The stage started well. I got Van Loon, he got Nasser, but he stopped with a puncture. We passed him. He was going really well with a good rhythm. But suddenly in the right corner I noticed something strange in the rear suspension.The ball joint broke.We were in the car so we stopped to change it.

Dissatisfied with problem-solving work

“Neither Lucas nor I are happy with how we did our job because it could have been done faster. , it could have been done in less time.But we are under stress, not mechanics… Something to stop We will improve in the future. Perhaps yesterday’s stone didn’t know why it broke so it already had a crack in it.

double punk

“I kept pushing hard but I had a puncture on the wheel and a problem with the jack.The jack wouldn’t go up and I had to climb the car over a rock to change the wheel. We had another puncture and during the repair one of the bolts got reverse threaded and when we tried to remove the wheel from the second puncture the bolt wouldn’t come off and the wheel wrench broke. Wait for Ekstrom to be able to change that.

mechanic training

“Yes, but in the end, I trained once a month and a half ago, but in the end… it’s not the same. Today I have to admit that I am not happy and I should have done my best.”

keep fighting

“We are here. We will continue. With a clearer strategy, we will attack and try to recover.”

Stage 4, I doubt if it will be canceled

“I’m not sure, but I’ve seen images with a little bit of hair standing on end. But the water runs fast here. Unless there’s a lot of sand and it rains and floods, it’s usually Well drained. Honestly, I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.”

The key to this Dakar is that things happen

“The keynote is about punks, so I think we’ve reached the realm of reducing play now. If there was a batch of BF Goodrich, I don’t know what’s going on..why are we doing this all over the world?” I don’t understand why we’re playing so many matches. We need to analyze that too. We have a lot of days left.

Recover the 33 minutes that separated him from Nasser

“The Dakar because 30 minutes is a long time, but in the end we see a Dakar with a lot of things happening. If that’s the trend, I hope they don’t happen to us. But from now on we have a strategy. We have to change, we have to keep attacking, and we have to buy tickets so more can happen, but we’re going to try.”.

arriving dunes

“At the last dunes I don’t think there will be much of a difference.”

Better to have problems at the start of the rally

“Exactly. If it’s going to be a big problem like today, it’s better to have it first. Of course, it will take more days to recover.”

Organizations may cancel other points in the stage

“They said something, but I’m not sure. I don’t have a lot of illusions, whatever it is.”