Winning helps you to win, but also to be increasingly hungry for success. Carlos Sainz isn’t hanging up his helmet. In fact, he raises. After winning the fourth Dakar of his already sensational career a few months ago, he was announced as the official and star driver of the new Ford cross-country programme, which also includes the Dakar.
In addition to Sainz, Ford will be able to make use of the services of Nani Roma, already a two-time winner of the Dakar, who will be the second of the 4 drivers that the Blue Oval company will field starting from the 2025 edition of the most famous rally raid in the world.
This announcement is very important, because it brings Sainz back to a Ford rally – although this is a cross-country – 20 years after the last time, when they raced together in the WRC with the official Ford Focus WRC.
Furthermore, Carlos also raced with the Ford Sierra RS in his debut year in the WRC, i.e. 1987. The second parenthesis with the blue oval should not be forgotten, the one which saw him engaged in the WRC in 1996, winning three rallies before passing to Toyota.
In this case Sainz arrives at Ford after winning the Dakar with Volkswagen, Peugeot, MINI and Audi. With this he achieved his latest success this year, bringing a hybrid car equipped with a 2.0 petrol engine which served as a recharge for the RS Q e-tron.
Ford Raptor
Photo credit: Ford Performance
“I’m very excited about this new Dakar Rally project, to return to work with Ford for the fourth time, to return to M-Sport, to return to Malcolm who I know very well, it’s really fantastic to be back,” said the Madrid native.
“My history with Ford dates back to ’87 and I believe I was Malcolm’s first driver [Wilson, fondatore di M-Sport], his first official driver ever, and I’m very proud of him. I’m really excited to drive the Raptor and take on this big challenge with many goals. One of them is to help Ford win the Dakar Rally.”
Meanwhile, Ford is continuing the development of the new Ranger Raptor, the car with which Sainz, Roma and two other drivers will hunt for the 2025 Dakar. This was announced by the Detroit company itself, eager to create a vehicle capable of bringing back the brand at the top of such a tough motorsport category as rally raids.
“The scale of our off-road racing ambitions is unprecedented in Ford’s recent history and nothing makes this ambition clearer than our challenge to take the Ford Raptor to the legendary Dakar Rally,” said Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance Motorsport .
“Tackling such a huge challenge requires the best engineers, designers, team members, navigators and drivers, and in Nani Roma and Carlos Sainz Sr, we have two of the most experienced and successful drivers in the history of the Dakar. The Ford Raptor is already showing promising signs in testing and having two of the best drivers in the world with us gives us confidence for the continued development of the vehicle.”
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