Carlos Sainz said goodbye to any chance of winning the Dakar with an accident in the sixth stage of the career. The Spaniard has revealed that the accident was quite severe and that they were “lucky” because nothing serious happened.
‘El Matador’ explained how he got to the area of the accident after opening the track throughout the stage: “At first it was fine, but then, with a blow, I felt a little pain in my neck and I started to slow down. After from the neutral, I let Stéphane (Peterhansel) pass and tried to follow him“.
“In rally-raid, when you try to follow a car closely, you can’t see where it is and it’s easier to follow the car behind, so I trusted him 100%. After six kilometers, he went to the left, I followed him and the next thing I remember are the two cars flying. When we landed, I broke the suspension, Stéphane lost consciousness, but we were lucky it wasn’t something more seriousalthough Boulanger (Peterhansel’s co-driver) had some injury,” he added.
“There was a six-meter drop, it was coming fast and when we fell, I damaged the left suspension, so we had to wait for assistance to change all the parts. We couldn’t finish the stage,” he concluded.
Lucas Cruz gives more details
Lucas Cruz, Carlos Sainz’s co-driver, wanted to give more details about the accident: “8 or 9 kilometers from neutral, there were some motorcycle lines that were misleading as if the track went to the right. Peterhansel jumped to the right and had quite a high level change. He jumped and fell flat. Boulanger hurt his back and Stéphane lost consciousness at that moment.”
“We, who were behind, slowed down a little and, when we fell, we fell to the side supported by the left front wheel. We started it and we had to spend quite a few hours there. We started to dismount and we found people from the public who helped us”, ended.
