Former world rally champion Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz of Spain led an historic Volkswagen 1-2-3 in the 32nd Dakar Rally in Argentina last Saturday 16 January when they brought their Race Touareg home in a time of 47h 10min 00sec after 14 days and 9 000 km of marathon off road racing.
It was an emphatic victory for the man they call ‘El Matador’, twice a world rally champion, who had led from stage five. It also made up for the disappointment he experienced 12 months ago when he crashed out of the 2009 Dakar on stage five while leading.
This time he made no mistake and finished a slim 2min 12sec ahead of team-mates Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar and Timo Gottschalk of Germany and 32min 51sec in front of American Mark Miller and South African Ralph Pitchford in the third Volkswagen. Miller and Pitchford, who is the South African off road champion co-driver, finished second in last year’s Dakar.
It was Volkswagen’s third Dakar win after previous victories in 1980 (with a Volkswagen Iltis) and last year with De Villiers in a Race Touareg.
Fourth overall and the first non-Volkswagen to complete the gruelling event was the BMW X3 of nine-times Dakar winner Stephane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret.
They were 2h 17m 21s behind the winning Volkswagen. Fellow Frenchman Guerlain Chicherit and Swede Tina Thorner were fifth in a BMW X3, a further 1h 45m 53s back.
Defending champion Giniel de Villiers of South Africa and his German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz finished seventh overall in a Race Touareg, 5h 10min 19sec behind Sainz.
Any chance De Villiers had of winning a second Dakar was dashed when his Volkswagen suffered electrical problems in stage three on January 4 and he had to wait for his assistance truck, losing over two hours.
For the rest of the rally he played a support role to his team-mates, carrying spares that slowed him down and stopping to render assistance when needed.
Despite this he almost won stage eight on January 10 when he led with just seven kilometres remaining, only to drop back to fourth after picking up a puncture.
The final stage of the 14 that made up the 9 000-km event, from Santa Rosa to Buenos Aires, was won by Al-Attiyah, who made a supreme effort to haul in his team-mate. Sainz was not to be denied and finished just 36seconds behind the Qatari.
Third and fourth were French team-mates Guerlain Chicherit and Stephane Peterhansel in BMW X3s, followed by Miller and Pitchford and De Villiers and Von Zitzewitz.