He’s back. Again. For the fourth time in his career, Carlos Sainz begins another Ford adventure at this week’s Rallye du Maroc.
The Spaniard joined Ford’s Dakar program in May, but next week’s World Rally-Raid Championship finale provides a maiden competitive outing in the Raptor. Sainz might have turned a page, started a new chapter, but his storied time with Ford and M-Sport is worthy of a book in itself.
We don’t have space for that book, but we do have space to consider five great moments in his time with Ford so far. Here goes – and these are in chronological, rather than ranked, order.
1983 Formula Ford Festival
This one’s a touch disingenuous, but it was a 1600cc Ford Kent engine which powered the then 21-year-old into the motorsport limelight and on a path towards the spotlight. He drove a Madgwick Motorsport Van Diemen RF83 Scholar at the Brands Hatch-based event in the fall, finishing fourth in his heat to move into the quarter-final. That was as far as he would get, but it helped him ease his way into the Formula Ford 2000 series in the UK in 1984.
“I don’t remember so much about that [Festival],” Sainz told DirtFish. “For me, rallying was always the priority, but it was more difficult to find sponsorship in Spain to go rallying – for racing it was a little bit easier.”
1987 Rally of Portugal
Sainz made his WRC debut in a Ford back in 1987 - and won his first ever stage
Simultaneous to his racing exploits, Sainz had started rallying with a Fiat Panda (he won the 1981 Panda Cup in Spain); the move to a Renault 5 Turbo brought outright rally wins – but his World Rally Championship debut would be made with Ford in Portugal, 1987.
And what a debut… Admittedly, the first stage did favor him and his rear-wheel drive Boreham-built Sierra RS Cosworth. It was a nine-miler around the Estoril circuit. Sainz went eight seconds faster than anybody.
A further scratch time on stage six kept him in the top three overall before suspension trouble struck the Sierra. Not long after the car’s turbo lunched itself and that was that.
“Everybody remembers that fastest time on my first stage of the WRC,” said Sainz. “I was happy for that, but I think I was even more happy when I made second fastest time on the gravel against the four-wheel drive Lancias and Mazdas.”
1987 RAC Rally
Sainz dearly wanted to win the RAC when the notes were still on maps
This one might be a touch controversial, but for me eighth overall on his first ever RAC Rally was a special result – maybe seventh on the snowy and icy event of the following year was even better… But typically, Sainz wanted to challenge himself early in his career and so completed his three-round 1987 WRC program (seventh in Corsica followed his Portuguese disappointment) in the depths of the British forests.
His Sierra was run by Mike Little, a man with plenty of experience and knowledge of the RAC, but still Sainz and co-driver Antonio Boto dived into the ‘blind’ event (run on maps and not pacenotes) and delivered a fine result – one which didn’t go unnoticed by the likes of then Toyota boss Ove Andersson.
“I enjoyed the RAC,” said Sainz. “I always wanted to win that event before we were allowed to make the recce, to win it using maps would have been something special. That was a nice rally for me.”
1997 Monte Carlo Rally
When M-Sport took over Ford’s world championship effort at the dawn of the World Rally Car era, it was with Sainz as lead driver. The transition from Ford Escort RS Cosworth to Ford Escort WRC (the preparation for which had been done largely in the outbuildings at Malcolm Wilson’s home, while the search for the glorious Dovenby Hall base continued) had been hurried and the two-time title winner understood how much an early result would help settle Cumbrian nerves.
Leading throughout the first leg, hopes of edging Piero Liatti for a historic first win of the new generation were lost when he took the wrong tire on a sodden Col de la Couillole. Second, less than a minute behind the Italian’s Subaru was still a good start.
“That result was good for the team,” said Sainz. “Everybody had worked really hard before the start of the season, so it was good to show we could lead and then finish well.”
2000 Cyprus Rally
Sainz (right) and Moya celebrate a commanding and controlled win in Cyprus
With the championship visiting the Mediterranean island for the first time, few WRC regulars had any idea what lay in store on the roads through the Troodos Mountains. Sainz’s pace to run Colin McRae a close and contentious second in Greece earlier in the season had demonstrated he was very much up to speed with the Focus WRC – but few predicted a runaway win of this nature in Limassol.
Sainz immediately understood the balance between the need for speed and for tire preservation. By the time his rivals had come to terms with that, the Spanish star was already a minute up the road, managing that gap and challenging anybody to run the risk and try to catch him.
Nobody did. This was classic Carlos: toweringly quick, perfectly precise and brilliantly strategic.
