It is highly likely to have been his last chance to win the event in the petrol-electric RS Q e-tron, although Audi is yet to make an announcement about the fate of its rally-raid effort, as it prepares to join Formula 1 with Sauber.
Speaking after sealing victory, Sainz said, “At the moment, I want to enjoy this victory and I will think about my future in the next weeks. We will see what happens in the future.
“I think yesterday was an important day for the win, but it’s been important from the beginning.
“As I said, there were a lot of favourites but like always in the Dakar somebody is stopped by problems and from maybe 10th you can go to ninth, eighth, seventh and so on.
“I think we drove at a really good pace. We had a good strategy and good support from the team.”
As to where Sainz would go, the previously dominant Toyota arguably could use his experience given it lost Nasser Al-Attiyah to Prodrive this year (and Dacia next year) after he drove a Hilux to the 2022 and 2023 Dakar titles.
One of his former World Rally Championship teams, M-Sport, could also be in the mix given it is nowadays also behind Ford’s Dakar programme.
Sainz’s 2024 Dakar triumph was earned by a combination of speed, navigational smarts, and mechanical sympathy, as his team-mates Stephane Peterhansel and Mattias Ekstrom, along with Prodrive’s Al-Attiyah and Sebastien Loeb, struck dramas.
Reflecting on the win, the Spaniard remarked, “It means that when you work hard and you believe in yourself, when you have a good team and good people around you, then the work will always pay off.
“This car is so special, it’s so difficult to manage, it has been so difficult to make it work.
“To finish and to win this race, well, I’m so happy for Audi.
“I think the energy comes from the passion I have. It’s obviously, believing in yourself, believing that you can still drive and a lot of work behind the scenes as well.
“To be here at my age and to stay at the level, you need to work a lot beforehand. It doesn’t just come like that.
“It shows that when you work hard, normally it pays off.”
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