Carlos Sainz remains cautious with his options at Dakar

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There are four more stages ahead, Carlos Sainz And Lucas Cruz They lead the general classification Rally Dakar, ahead of his immediate pursuer by more than twenty minutes. There are those who are starting to consider the Madrid native the winner of the Dakar, but he doesn’t even want to think about it.

Increases advantage after the eighth stage

In the eighth stage, El Matador managed to overcome the difficulties and increase their lead by more than five additional minutes. It wasn’t the easiest stage, with a mixture of sand, dunes, asphalt and rocks, and some navigation difficulties, but Carlos Sainz finished with a good feeling.

“Between the first and second parts there was a completely different stage.. The first one with sand, with dunes, not so much, but a few dunes, and the truth is that Loeb went through there quite quickly.”Sainz said at the end of the scene. “Then the second part was completely different: a lot of rock and very open areas, and the further back the better.”.

“Us Today we had no problems with navigation., without punctureand the truth is that Lucas (Cruz) did a good job. We happy with the scene because we were able to recover for a whileAnd one day less“Carlos continued.

Excellent result from the pilot Audi This helped him compensate for the time lost in the fight against his pursuer. Sebastian Loeb, at the previous stage. The Frenchman also got lost while swimming today, causing him to lose time, which Sainz considers normal: “He got lost and left for I don’t know how many minutes, but this is Dakar. “Some days they go one way and sometimes the other.”.

There are those who believe that Carlos should start to use his advantage in the four remaining stages, not push too hard and manage to keep his distance from Loeb. However, Sainz remembers that much can still happen.

“At the moment there are four days left, three very long ones with the last day of stones, and we see that there are a lot of differences. Every day something happens, many situations happen, and we have to continue in the same spirit.“he explained.

On the other hand, the factor that can make all the difference in the event of any failure is the ability to get help from your teammates. Stefan Peterhansel And Mattias Ekström. However, both finished the stage ahead of him (second and first respectively) and will start ahead tomorrow, and Sainz believes they should think about how to change that.

“We need to prepare a team strategy, we need to think about it, but without a doubt It would be great if there was a car behind“– finished Carlos Sainz.