Rally car champion looks to defend title at Dakar 2025

Carlos Sainz looks to extend his record as the oldest Dakar Rally winner at age 62.

The four-time champion returns to Dakar in 2025 to defend his title and chase a record-breaking fifth trophy.

Beginning in 1980, Carlos Sainz had an impressive rally car career that included two World Rally championships in 1990 and 1992 and four Dakar victories in 2010, 2018, 2020, and 2024.

Now, at age 62, the Spaniard, or ‘El Matador’, as he’s known, is leading the all-new Ford Performance team and spearheading the development of Ford’s newest entry to rally car, the Raptor T1+. 

“To win the Dakar Rally you need to have a good strategy, plus you must be faster than the others. In 2024 the rally went well for us,” said Sainz in an interview with Red Bull.

Dakar Rally 2025 will be the 47th edition. Since its inception in 1978, the majority of the races have been staged from Paris France to Dakar, in Senegal. In 2008, security threats in Mauritania forced the race’s cancellation and prompted the move to South America from 2009 through 2019, only moving to its current location in Saudi Arabia in 2020.

The Dakar Rally is a gruelling 14-day off-road endurance challenge covering 7,759 kilometres through 12 stages across the sands of Saudi Arabia. Both amateurs and professionals race in one of five categories, motorbikes, quads, cars, trucks and utility task vehicles. Teams navigate their way from Bisha starting on January 3rd to Shubaytah arriving on Jan. 17. The winning team claims the coveted Touareg trophy.

Introduced in 2024, Stage 2 provides two challenges mixing endurance and performance happen during a 48-hour stint covering 1,058 kilometres through the Bisha desert. This stint, Chrono, is one of the toughest stages in the Dakar rally. Stage 2 takes place on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. 

“The 48-hour Chrono stage is now a crucial part of the Dakar. It’s two days without any service from your team,” said Sainz.

Although considered by many as the favourite to win Dakar Rally 2025, Sainz’s new Ford Raptor T1+ is still in the development phase and is largely unproven, unlike the all-new Dacia Sandrider Nasser Al-Attiyah will be driving.

The younger Al-Attiyah, 54, will challenge Sainz for this year’s trophy. Al-Attiyah also has an impressive career with five overall wins in 20 appearances, 48 individual stage wins plus 11 podiums. His win at the Rally Morocco in October demonstrated how capable the new Dacia Sandrider can be. The Renault Group, the manufacturer who developed Al-Attiyah’s new car, conducted an intensive testing program prior to the race in Morocco to prepare for Dakar in January. 

Despite driving a new and unproven vehicle, Sainz has the experience and talent to win in 2025. Over the 45-year span of his career, Sainz has driven vehicles from several manufacturers and has participated in 17 previous Dakar Rallies giving him an edge. 

At age 61, Sainz set the record for the oldest driver to win the Dakar Rally in 2024. A win in 2025 would demonstrate he still has what it takes to be a winning driver.

“Obviously with age, I’ve had to adapt my training program. I work with a team of professionals and they know me very well,” said Sainz.