Carlos Sainz normally races for ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team in Extreme E, but is unable to do so for 2023 as he recovers from the vertebrae injury he sustained at the Dakar Rally in January. Fortunately for him, his replacement and Laia Sanz‘s new partner in the #55 will be his Dakar team-mate Mattias Ekström.
Sainz and Ekström have competed in rally raids together for Team Audi Sport along with Stéphane Peterhansel since 2022. Despite the star-studded group and a fast RS Q e-tron E2, the team struggled with reliability in 2023 until Sainz and Peterhansel crashed out and Ekström finished outside the top ten in fourteenth. With Audi only planning to run the Dakar Rally and Rallye du Maroc, Sainz has spent the last two months rehabilitating the vertebrae he broke in said crash.
In the time between Dakar and the Extreme E opener (both incidentally taking place in Saudi Arabia), Ekström won the Race of Champions individual tournament for a record-tying fifth time. He is currently racing in the second leg of the World Rally-Raid Championship, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, in the T3 category. Amusingly, ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team’s announcement came just hours after he retired from the ADDC’s Stage #3 with an engine failure. He won his class in the previous stage.
Sainz, who won the Dakar thrice, will remain involved with ACCIONA | Sainz in an advisory role.
“I know him well and I trust him completely because I know what he is capable of. I believe he is one of the best and most multifaceted race drivers in the world, and therefore it is an honour that he gets to defend the colours of ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team,” Sainz said of Ekström. “I have raced against him in Extreme E and know him as my teammate in Audi in the raids, so I am aware of his potential and strengths.
“I myself will do all I can to help the team achieve its goals. I will be attending the races and supporting them to get the best results we can. Regarding Laia, she keeps growing as a race driver and she knows the team throughout.”
Ekström contested the inaugural Extreme E season in 2021 for ABT CUPRA XE, where he partnered with Claudia Hürtgen and Jutta Kleinschmidt, the latter taking over midseason and the 2001 Dakar Rally winner. The team finished fifth in points with a second-place run in the Island X Prix. He departed XE to spend more time with family and rally raid, and was replaced by four-time and twice reigning Dakar champion Nasser Al-Attiyah.
“Carlos is one of my childhood idols and since we are teammates in Audi Dakar project, we’ve become friends, so it feels special and even emotional to join his team at Extreme E,” commented Ekström. “With me stepping in for Carlos, it will give him more time to recover from the accident he suffered at Dakar. I also know Laia since my very first Extreme E race and I’ve seen her progress a lot and she has shown her speed on track.
“Even though it was a very late decision to join the team, I will do my best to bring success to ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team this season and I hope we can fight for race wins and titles. I look forward on meeting all the team members in person and working with Carlos as my team boss, as I’m sure it will be a fun and valuable experience.”
Sanz also boasts Dakar experience as the most accomplished female rider, scoring a ninth in the 2015 Bikes category. She has finished the Rally every year since 2011 even after switching to a car in 2022. Despite flipping in Stage #5, she kept her streak alive and finished thirty-second in T1.
After finishing fifth in the 2021 XE standings, Sanz and Sainz made bigger strides in 2022 with a pair of runner-ups in the Desert X Prix and Copper X Prix en route to a third-place points finish.
“It will definitely be strange not having Carlos on my side in Saudi Arabia, but his advice will be as important as always to try and achieve the result we all want,” added Sanz. “I am thrilled to be working with Mattias, who doesn’t really need any introduction because he has achieved so much in his long career in motorsports.”
The 2023 Extreme E season commences with the Desert X Prix on 11/12 March.
