Hybrid in paradise with Audi at the Dakar: the joy of the 4 Circles

Hybrid for the first time in front of everyone in the desert

“Audi makes history: For the first time, a low-emission prototype with electric drive, high-voltage battery and energy converter wins the toughest desert rally in the world with the Audi RS Q e-tron”. This is how the official press release opens Audi celebrates the victory in the category in the 46th edition of the Dakar won by Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz with a considerable advantage over De Mevius' Toyota and Sebastien Loeb's Hunter Prodrive, for whom five stage victories were not enough to go further in third place (fifth podium in eight participations for the Alsatian who had just come from two consecutive second places).

Audi was in the last year of the three-year project which saw hybrid buggies at the start of the Dakar starting from 2022: “Congratulations to Team Audi Sport for the victory in the Dakar Rally – the words of Gernot DöllnerChairman of the Board of Directors of AUDI AG – Audi has once again signed a milestone in the history of motorsport. Winning the toughest desert rally in the world with a hybrid powertrain is a real feat“. “After just three years we have overcome one of the greatest challenges in motorsport. We thus continue a long series of pioneering results that have always characterized Audi in four decades of motorsport. I would like to thank the entire team for this extraordinary performance in a particularly difficult edition of the Dakar Rally”echoed Döllner Oliver Hoffmannhead of technical development at Audi.

“It was an extraordinary team performance – added the head of Audi Motorsport Rolf Michl – everyone made themselves available to make this historic result possible for Audi. A big thank you to this wonderful team. Today we wrote a new chapter for Audi, but also in the history of the Dakar Rally“. This Dakar success for Audi continues a long tradition of success in the world of motorsport. Now on the horizon there is the 'definitive' stage, F1 which will see Audi at the start from 2026.