WHOOPS, SAINZ DID IT AGAIN

So Carlos Sainz Snr has rolled in the Dakar Rally – what else is new?

He did the same thing back in 2023 in an Audi RS Q e-tron, but rebounded in 2024 to score his fourth Dakar win with the German carmaker.

Now he has rolled his Ford Raptor, so is that a warm-up for victory in 2026?

Of course, Sainz will be 63 by then . . .

But he is still only an hour-ish behind the leaders of this year's desert classic, with a long way to the finish.

Many years ago, I asked Sainz how many times he had rolled during his rally career.

The answer, once we had confirmed we were discussing individual events and not the total number of flips, rolls and other inversions, he was quick to reply.

"Thirty-two," the speedy Spaniard said.

It's was quite a number and now there is another, probably taking him past 50 in total, thanks to his mistake on the first serious competition stage of the Dakar Rally 2025.

“The stage was quite tough. In many places it was difficult to see the line. Many places were also very narrow and the car got quite damaged,” he reported after the rollover.

So, the question becomes this one – are rollovers just the price you pay when you're as quick and committed as Sainz?

The answer is almost certainly yes, and is based on another of his World Rally Championship experiences at Rally Australia back in 1991.

El Matador was a serious contender for victory, driving a Celica ST-165 for Toyota Team Europe.

But then he rolled when pushing hard on a bitumen stage at a university in Perth, using treaded gravel tyres and high-riding gravel suspension.

The car was a bit battered and bruised, but was quickly knocked into shape for the resumption of rallying the following morning.

Where he rolled again. Number two. On the York Railway stage, where I was watching and saw him approach at stupid speed, roll off the edge of the road, re-start his car's engine and fire back up onto the track.

He was second-quickest on the stage behind his team mate Juha Kankkunen, who could not believe he was so fast. And had rolled again.

Then came The Big One, in the Bunnings Plantation. Sainz clipped the inside of a corner and the car was launched - more than five rollovers later, he and co-driver Luis Moya were off to hospital.

So, now Sainz has done it again in the Dakar.

Still, it doesn't seem to be worrying his team boss Malcolm Wilson, whose M-Sport team built the four Raptors for this year's event.

"It looks like he’s lost around an hour, which is a lot, but this is stage two of the Dakar – there’s a long way to go," said Wilson.

“Hopefully from what we can see and what we’ve heard it’s more just cosmetic damage than anything structural and it looks like he’s been running at a pretty reasonable pace, nearing a full pace after that."