Carlos Sainz Working Closely with Volkswagen to Develop WRC Car

Ex-WRC Driver and Dakar Rally winner Carlos Sainz is playing a major role in Volkswagen WRC future. Since ending his professional rally career, Sainz has been working with Volkswagen to start its WRC program that will begin next season. 

Sainz was a factory WRC driver for Ford, Toyota, Subaru and Citroen from 1988 to 2005. He won the world championship twice in 1990 and 1992 while driving for Toyota and finished second and third in the world championship multiple times throughout his career. Sainz gained the overall victory at the Dakar Rally in 2010 while driving for Volkswagen and took third in the Dakar in 2011. 

"We have seen on the Dakar, we went fast forwards when we got Carlos Sainz in the car with his extremely professional attitude.It was not because the others were bad drivers, but the other drivers came from the classic Dakar, whereas Carlos came from the motorsport where you need to be all the time fast, all the time committed, everything must be 100 per cent, everything. We tried to give that to Carlos and we came a long way. In Carlos, we had the push. I am very happy to have Carlos on my side now, he can help me push," said Kris Nissen, director of Volkswagen Motorsports.

Sainz has been doing more than just developing the team for Volkswagen, he has also been test driving the car. Nissen said that Sainz has been test driving the car, and that he asked Sainz to compete in the car in the WRC. Sainz declined. 

 "I have good memories of Dakar and I know this team can be strong in the WRC, but we have work to do now. We are new to this side of the sport and we have a lot of testing to do before we can compete with Ford and Citroen," said Sainz. 

Source Autosport