the footballer who was not, his strange theory about Max Verstappen and what it is like to run “the toughest race in the world” at 61 years old

The last time he had set foot in the Arabian desert, the legend of the Spanish rally Carlos Sainz ended up sitting on a dune with a scarf on his head and two broken vertebrae. It was after the violent crash that broke his car and left him out of the 2023 edition of the Dakar, in Saudi Arabia. “This race is a box of surprises and you have to be prepared for the worst“, he acknowledges. This talk takes place during the last days of last year and now we are in another desert, the Atacama, in the North of Chile, on the last date of the Extreme E, a category of electric cars but with high vertigo and wholesale sticks, which in some way is the prior to the big event of all: “The toughest race on earth”as they point out to the Dakar, the rally of rallies, which this year is again run on Saudi lands (or arenas) and once again has the Madrid native as the protagonist.

After the blow that occurred in the ninth stage of the 2023 Dakar, Carlos Sainz dedicated all of ’24 to preparing the machine. That, talking about the car and his body, which at 61 years old allows him to continue in the elite of motor sport. “The accident marked the rest of the year. I couldn’t start the season and I dedicated myself fully to preparing for the Dakar,” he details, sitting on a bench in the Acciona pits, the Extreme E category team he owns.

Beyond his well-known driving talent, The man from Madrid is a kind of super athlete. And not only because at 61 he faces the most extreme rally on the planet for the eighteenth time, the one he has already won three times. But because – leaving the slopes – Sainz seems to be one of those guys who plays everything well. As a boy he thought about trying out for Real Madrid, he was a youth squash champion and even decided to practice boxing; His teacher was none other than Miguel Velázquez, one of the 15 world boxing champions that Spain had in its history. Although he clarifies that he never thought about getting into a ring professionally: “he did it just to stay in shape.”

The key to returning to the Dakar after his accident last year is to not give advantages to his athletic state: “It’s a little bit of everything. But lately, when you’re getting older and you become a veteran driver, it’s even more important to be in shape. Do bodybuilding work and do aerobic work with some of my coaches and we also put my experience into practice to try to be competitive in the Dakar and not suffer too much,” he tells Clarín in under the canvas of the tent that stops the hot desert sun.

-At this point, annual service is not only key for the vehicle, but also for the body.

-And in this case the car already has many, many kilometers and the service has to be good (laughs).

-What vehicle would we be talking about: a Ferrari, a classic…?

-I wouldn’t dare say that I have a Ferrari, but I do have a good car. Of course, the years are noticeable and each year it becomes more important to maintain it.

-In Argentina we say that we are all frustrated footballers: as a football lover and fan of Real Madrid, did you feel anything similar?

-That desire, to play football, existed as a child. But I liked cars so much that my head was always thinking about racing. Then I started racing in the World Rally Championship and all my desires went there.

Sainz retired from the World Rally Championship in 2004 as the driver who had scored the most points in history. An animal like the Frenchman had to appear Sébastien Loeb to snatch that record. In any case, he appears on several historic podiums: he continues to be the one who competed in the most races (196) and is the third with the most victories, behind Loeb (obviously) and the Finn Marcus Grönholm.

“At this point they have broken several records, but well, at the time I retired I was the one with the most points. I did my job in the World Rally Championship, I am satisfied with my career. I was the first non-Nordic to win in Finland and I managed to be competitive on all surfaces. When I arrived at the World Cup there were specialists on each surface and breaking that trend was… well,” says Sainz with some modesty and cuts the story short.

-When Messi broke the record for goals in the Argentine National Team, Batistuta felt a bittersweet taste at being surpassed: what happened to you when Loeb kept some of his marks?

-I am very happy with my career in the World Rally Championship. I won what I won and I know what I did. Each driver has his own way of seeing things about driving, his own style. Comparing different different eras is complicated.

-Senna and Schumacher always said that Fangio was the grandmaster of F1: Does that camaraderie exist in the rally? Do you feel like a reference for those who came after?

-You should ask them that. As I tell you, I feel very proud of what I have done in motorsports. Being the first Spanish rally world champion has made me very excited. I can’t complain about what life has thrown at me.

-Was Formula 1 a pending matter in your career?

-No, I have enjoyed it, I have had fun and my dream was to always be in the World Rally Championship, to run in snow, to run on dirt and to run in the mud. It’s what always caught me.

-To what extent it influences your son’s Formula 1 career.

-Well, we are always very united. I have been with him supporting him since karting. Of course I am a proud father that his son is racing in Ferrari.

-He was one of the few who could take a GP from Max Verstappen… It must be frustrating to go racing for second place. What does he tell you about the Dutch?

-It is a huge satisfaction that he has won a great prize as happened in Singapore. Verstappen is an outlier and on top of that he has the best car. So, when you put together an outstanding machine with a machine like the one he had this year it is very difficult.

-Was it a defect of the organization that the Formula 1 championship is becoming more and more uneven?

-I think that much more equality is needed in Formula 1, but it is not going to be easy because the advantage that Red Bull has at the moment is very, very big, much more than what has been seen.

-I think that Verstappen in the last races, when he saw himself there first, did not want to push harder.

-And psychologically how does the pilot experience that situation? Do you work with Carlos Jr?

-In the life of an athlete one must always be happy with oneself. You have to be calm about giving everything you have for a sport where you depend on a car, you depend on many things. Therefore, in the end, the important thing is to be happy that you have given your all, that you have not left anything to chance, that you have paid all possible attention to the smallest detail and you will have nothing to reproach yourself for. Of course, if all of this is achieved by achieving victory, then much better.