It is what the Dakar is all about. Every participant in the rally has a story of how the event hurt them – how, just when everything looked to be going well, the rally bit back, of how a momentary lapse of concentration punched them out of contention or left them stranded in the desert, alone beside their wrecked machinery, waiting for the camion balai, literally the ‘broom truck’ that comes along to sweep up the debris of failed machinery and exhausted competitors.

Double World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz is a man with first-hand experience of just how unkind the world’s most demanding off-road rally can be. Played out in a land where Prince Charming doesn’t always get the girl, where the wicked witch triumphs and fate is often cruel. For here is a man who, whilst breezing through the 12th stage of last year’s rally, was in a comfortable lead, with everything pointing towards a glorious march to victory in Buenos Aires for Sainz. But just 79km into the third from last special stage, everything was snatched away from the Spaniard with a single bizarre error.

One minute navigating his way around the rugged Argentinean landscape, the next, sat upside down in his broken and battered Red Bull VW Touareg like an insect flipped over by a nasty child. Sainz was literally stuck between a rock and hard place after dropping four metres into a dry river bed, something that was omitted from the road book, the stage guide that was handed out to his co-driver Michel Perin the evening before.

With the aid of passersby and a bit of brute force, the Touareg was eventually flipped back onto its wheels, perched against a mound of rocks, as Perin screamed in agony as a medic attended to his broken shoulder before having to be hooked up to a portable drip and ferried back to the bivouac, resulting in the end of their 2009 Dakar Rally adventure.

Undeterred, a 47-year-old Sainz returned for his fourth attempt at the Dakar this year, eager to charge headlong into the unknown each dawn and realise his dream of clinching another off-road trophy to add to the two WRC titles he won in 1990 and ’92 in a Toyota Celica – the first (and only) Spanish rally champion.

Adopting a more cautious approach this time around, Volkswagen’s lead driver enjoyed a strong opening to this year’s event and quickly moved into the lead of the rally for the first time on stage five, after nine times Dakar winner Stephane Peterhansel was delayed by over two hours by transmission problems with his X-Raid BMW.

From there Sainz continued to step ever closer to overall victory with each passing day, increasing his tally of Dakar stage victories to 18 along the way after winning stages 10 and 12 – the latter being the day last year on which his Dakar exploits ended on the rocks. This time, he set the pace from the outset and led the way, ahead of team-mate Nasser Al-Attiyah, who began to emerge as the biggest threat to Sainz’s Dakar ambitions.

The battle for the top spot intensified on the penultimate stage, which took the competitiors from the sands of San Rafael to Santa Rosa in the heart of Argentine Pampas. Before stage 13 reached the tall grass of the Pampas, there was 50km of dunes to contend with, and it was in here that the day was won and lost – it was also here that Sainz and Al-Attiyah refused to give way, with the pair making contact and the Qatari then driving defensively to stop his VW compatriot from overtaking, a manoeuvre Sainz later labelled as unsporting.

The fact Al-Attiyah had managed to reduce Sainz’s lead to less than three minutes going into the final stage just made him more determined than ever to clinch his first Dakar rally victory, even if he was now out of his comfort zone. Bad luck had curtailed his chances last year; he certainly wasn’t going to throw it away this time if he could help it.

And that’s exactly what he did today. Sainz and his co-driver Cruz were in full control of the situation, driving fast and intelligently, and keping within safe distance of Al-Attiyah who eventually won the last 206km stage, but it was Sainz who wrapped up the event with a cushion of just over two minutes. A fairy-tale result for the globally recognisable superstar of the race, a world rally legend and holder of records for most rally starts and podium finishes, now extends a remarkable career by conquering and dominating the world’s most demanding off-road rally.

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