Al-Attiyah questions FIA’s Sainz decision in Dakar: We don’t belong in Formula 1

dacia driver Nasser Al-Attiyah FIA’s decision to ban Ford rival questioned Carlos Sainz Sr. from completing the 2025 Dakar Rally on safety grounds.

Sainz Sr. and Al-Attiyah’s teammate Sébastien Loeb were ruled out of Dakar earlier this week after suffering damage to their roll cages in separate crashes.

This eliminated two of the pre-rally favorites from the Ultimate category, leaving five-time winner Al-Attiyah to compete with only Ford’s Mattias Ekström and the Toyota pair. henk letgan And Yazid Al-Razi For overall victory.

In its reasoning, the FIA ​​said it could not guarantee that drivers would be safe inside the cockpit if a crash occurred again. It also explained why it could not allow manufacturers to repair the chassis during the rally.

However, Al-Attiya was not happy with the FIA’s clarification, saying: “It’s not killing the race, the problem is that the rules are not clear. I want to race with everyone, also with Carlos (Sainz), Seb (Loeb), Lia (Sainz). Why isn’t Carlos here? No reason.

“We can fix it, the team can fix it, why do you say, ‘Okay, it’s over’? We’re not in Formula 1, we’re in cross-country. How many cars now (left ?) If you go and examine carefully, do you find any fault?”

The Qatari driver was also angry at a 10-minute time penalty for losing a spare wheel during Stage 5 on Thursday, snatching his victory by just one second.

Stating his intention to write to FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem about the sanction, he said: “I don’t understand it. To lose the tire with support (structure) and then the spectator finds the tire with support and you get ten minutes. I don’t accept it.

“But I’m working to fix that whole problem because it’s not sport, we have to be fair. If I do it the wrong way and drop a tyre, okay, I get a ten-minute penalty, but we didn’t realize that, we have to be fair, but I would like to avoid all this (FIA) president. I will write a nice letter to him.”

Al-Attiyah currently sits fourth in the overall standings, 30 minutes behind Toyota rival Lategan, with six of 12 stages still to run.

Despite recovering from a huge deficit, the 54-year-old said he is confident about his chances of scoring another win in the Dakar and getting closer to Stéphane Peterhansel’s record of eight wins in the car category.

He said, “I will win. I have no doubt about it. Everyone wants to win, I have already won five times, but none of them have won yet. The next six days will be tough for the three of us because You start making a lot of mistakes in order to win when you want to.

“The gap is not big, it is seven minutes or ten minutes (between Lategan and Al-Rajhi). It is not big, and any mistake can lose you.

“I’m waiting for the mistakes, and while I’m going to make my strategy for the next two days, and then for the three days of dunes, if I’m close, I’m going all out.”

Photos from Dakar Rally Stage 6