MOTORSPORT: Volkswagen clean sweep in Dakar

'El Matador' Sainz adds to the legend
Volkswagen has gone one better than last year in the Dakar Rally. After its one-two finish with its turbodiesel Race Touaregs in the first Dakar held outside Europe and Africa a year ago, this time VW made a clean sweep of the podium.

The victorious driver this time was World Rally Championship legend Carlos Sainz, with Spanish compatriot Lucas Cruz as his co-driver.

They withstood a strong challenge from teammates Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar and Timo Gottschalk of Germany, who won the final 206km stage into the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, to narrow the final margin to 2 minutes and 12 seconds after two weeks of competition over some of the world's most torturous terrain.

"El Matador" Sainz, 47, and Al-Attiyah, 39, had an angry spat after the second last stage, with the Spaniard accusing the Qatari of banging into him, but it was all quite sporting at the finish.

"Spain has finally won the Dakar with cars," Sainz said. "We haven't had any problems, and the car doesn't have a scratch. I think we have done a fast but intelligent Dakar.

"It has been a very hard fight with my teammate. We knew it would be that way. The final stage (on which Sainz was 36 seconds slower than Al-Attiyah) was a very special, special stage. I could not afford any mistakes. We had to master everything and control our emotions. It has been like this for a week."

Al-Attiyah, who led the event early last year only to be disqualified for skipping part of the course, said of his runner-up finish: "Really I'm so happy with second place because I tried my best.

"It's a good feeling because we did a great job all Dakar without any mistakes or accidents with other cars. Congratulations to Carlos Sainz. What matters is that a Volkswagen won. I am happy for Carlos. He did his job. I tried to do mine. Next year, I'll win."

Sainz had held the lead from the fifth of the 14 stages, and won two of those stages, as VW took command of the second half of the event after the challenge from the X-raid BMW team.

The BMWs had plenty of pace but not the consistency to stay with the the VWs.

American Mark Miller and South African Ralph Pitchford completed the podium sweep for VW, within half an hour of the two Touaregs ahead of them.

Incidentally, Sainz's total time for the two weeks of competitive stages was a little over 47 hours, while motorcycle winner Cyril Despres of France on a KTM took four hours longer. Despres also won the Dakar in 2005 and 2007 in Africa.

French superstar Stephane Peterhansel, a three-time car winner of the Dakar (and six-time winner on motorcycles), was fourth this year in a BMW but more than two hours behind the first two VWs. Another Frenchman, Guerlain Chicherit, was fifth in another BMW.

Last year's winner for VW, South African Giniel de Villiers, was seventh this year after a string of early problems.

American NASCAR racer Robby Gordon had to settle for eighth place in his Hummer after lots of troubles.

It was the fourth Dakar for the 1990 and '92 world rally champion Sainz, winner of 26 WRC rallies. Since switching to rally raids Sainz has won the Cross Country World Cup in 2007 and has now contested 15 raids, winning the past three with Cruz.

Sainz crashed out of last year's Dakar while leading with two stages left. This was the first time he had contested the event with a Spanish-speaking co-driver. He had two punctures last Wednesday which enabled Al-Attiyah to halve the Spaniard's 10-minute lead.

The Qatari then maintained the pressure but Sainz and Cruz were always among the quickest on stages, were patient and avoided mistakes.

Cruz said of Sainz: "He is an exceptional driver and great character. To work with him is something special every day."

And VW motorsport director Kris Nissen said: "Carlos Sainz is incredibly target oriented and works in an incredibly structured way.

"He shares his ideas and know-how openly with other team mates, everybody in the team respects Carlos for his nature and performance -- even when it isn't easy for the mechanics and engineers to be pushed permanently to the limits of their performance.

"The competition this year was harder, particularly from the X-raid BMW. The route was also harder this year, which is why I think that this win is of even greater value (than last year's first by a diesel car). Particularly as our drivers fought so hard among themselves all the way to the finish line, I find the 2010 victory the more valuable of the two so far.

"Robby Gordon's Hummer was not as strong as we thought. Our newcomer Nasser Al-Attiyah did the entire team a world of good.

"I believe that you first have to conquer the Dakar before you can win it. A Volkswagen trio initially established itself at the head of the field with an advantage of more than two hours. The duel between Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz resulted from this.

"However, you can't plan a Dakar and take wins into account. For this reason I am of the opinion that the decision to give every driver the chance of winning was correct. For the team and also for the rally itself. I think the fans' enthusiasm proves this.

"Each VW driver reconsidered and implemented our Dakar motto every day -- 'To finish first, first you have to finish'. This is the key at the Dakar Rally. You can't make good a bad day.

"You can only win a 'Dakar' if you have a reliable car that is fast enough and you have drivers who can handle this. You don't have to win every stage to lead at the end. It was apparent this year with the level of competition as close as it was that it was always going to be a disadvantage, after winning the previous day's stage, to be the first car on track. A key to the success of Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz was to have a good stage every day and not necessarily go for the win.

"No human being or team can have so much luck as to just win the Dakar by turning up, which is why it is immensely important that the individual parts of a team mesh perfectly together. The team and I have spent many hours working together to optimise the procedures, to respect the processes and to be a little better every day.

"A team resembles a chain. If there is a weak link then you have to strengthen it as a team, because if it breaks you have a problem. I think we implemented this perfectly last year.

"And the last two South American Dakars have proved that the stages are just as tough or tougher than in Africa."

Dakar final top 10 -- 1. Carlos Sainz (Spain, VW) 47 hours 10 minutes; Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar, VW) +2m12s; 3. Mark Miller (USA, VW) +32m51s; 4. Stephane Peterhansel (France, BMW) +2h17m21s; 5. Guerlain Chicherit (France, BMW) + 4h02m49s; 6. Carlos Sousa (Portugal, Mitsubishi) +4h31m45s; 7. Giniel de Villiers (South Africa, VW) +5h10m19s; 8. Robby Gordon (USA, Hummer) +6h02m24s; 9. Orlando Terranova (Argentina, Mitsubishi) +6h04m47s; 10.  Guilherme Spinelli (Brazil, Mitsubishi) +6h13m41s

Queensland Raceway not back on calendar yet
No word yet on a resolution of the row in which the Queensland Raceway round of this year's V8 Supercar Championship was scrubbed. An announcement had been expected by last Friday night.

We suspect the snag is the Ipswich Council wangling enough money out of the Queensland government to meet the wishes of both V8 Supercars Australia and circuit operator John Tetley.

Mark Webber not the top Aussie???
Castrol has come up with new rankings of international racing drivers, see here.

Such ranking systems in any sport are often great talking points, even if they don't mean a lot, and this one has the potential to quite topical -- especially with two Australians near the top.

But how Ryan Briscoe comes in ahead of Mark Webber, as well as the two drivers who beat him in the IndyCar championship last year and a host of other Formula One drivers, is mystifying.

And, as much as we admire Briscoe, we suspect nobody would be more surprised than him.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at www.carsales.mobi