“We want to conquer the podium in the general classification”. So the battleship Audi had presented itself at the starting line of the 2023 edition with three RS Q e-tron buggies entrusted to the confirmed Stephane Peterhansel, Carlos Sainz and Mattias Ekstrom. In the only day of rest scheduled for today, a disastrous balance can already be drawn for the house of the Four Circles. Stephane Peterhansel retired after an accident that made Monsieur Dakar lose consciousness while co-driver Edouard Boulanger suffered the compression of a vertebra for which he will be operated on.
Carlos Sainz in turn in the same point – a fragile dune tackled at 120/140 km per hour by Peterhansel instead of 60-70 – destroyed his Audi having to waste hours waiting for assistance, a condition that led the Spaniard the day after to sacrifice yourself ‘donating’ the left rear suspension to Mattias Ekstrom, victim of a failure. The Swede is the ‘captain’ to use Audi’s cycling jargon, but it will be very difficult for him to get back on top to obtain a prestigious result in a general classification dominated by Nasser Al-Attiyah and Toyota with four Hilux ahead of everyone.
Yesterday Carlos Sainz also suffered the insult of losing the stage victory due to a 5-minute penalty for breaking the speed limit in an area where you couldn’t exceed 40 km/h. At Audi, analyzes are obviously underway to try to identify the reason for so many problems due to sudden suspension failures. As reported by the Spanish sports newspaper AS it would be in the viewfinder the shock absorber as all three pilots complain of back pain.
In the tests in Morocco these problems had not emerged, which instead presented themselves in Saudi Arabia to the test of facts. The week still available will in fact be used to all effects by Sainz and Ekstrom as a test in view of the next edition, an edition in which Sainz expects “equal treatment” after a concession of 10 horses arrived at the race in progress. ‘Forced’ to push to recover, the accidents for Peterhansel and Sainz arrived, even if the recurrence of the problems encountered by the RS Q e-tron suggests that the calibration of the shock absorbers actually needs to be reviewed.
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