Carlos Sainz victorious as Volkswagen fills the podium at Dakar

January 19, 2010

Filed under: Motorsports, Volkswagen, South America

Carlos Sainz wins the 2010 Dakar Rally for VW – Click above for high-res image gallery

When we joined Volkswagen on its first run in the Baja 500 back in 2008, the diesel-powered Race Touareg 2 suffered two lengthy breakdowns before the first hundred miles had passed. Just a few months, later VW’s diesel runner was taking the top two spots in the Dakar Rally. Not content with having to share the podium with Robby Gordon, VW went ahead and took the top three spots in this year’s Dakar.

Two-time World Rally Championship winner Carlos Sainz can now add a Dakar trophy to his cabinet. Avoiding the kind of mistakes that took him out of the race last year on the 12th stage, Sainz held on to win by just two minutes and 12 seconds over VW driver Nasser Al-Attiyah, even though Al-Attiyah won twice as many stages. Giniel de Villiers, last year’s winner, was in the third VW, 32 minutes behind Al-Attiyah.

You can read the presser on VW’s win-win-win after the jump, and check out the action in the gallery of high-res photos below. On a side note, VW Group diesels have now won Le Mans (Audi, Bentley), the Dakar Rally, and the World Touring Car Championship (Seat). Maybe now’s a good time to reconsider whether we really want them in NASCAR or F1…

Gallery: Carlos Sainz wins the 2010 Dakar Rally