This year marks the twentieth anniversary of one of the best co-drivers of the world first sat in a racing car, almost secretly, without telling his family. Who could tell then, that sixteen years later the youngster from Caldas de Montbui (close to Barcelona) steps the top of the podium of hardest cross-country rally in the world… Our readers may have realised already that we are talking about Lucas Cruz. It’s not a coincidence that we were talking to the co-driver of Carlos Sainz exactly on the day when Peugeot Red Bull unveiled the livery of 2008 DKR.
We caught Lucas on his way to the airport before flying to the HQ of the team to finalize some details on the assistance vehicles. But, as always, the Catalan found a small gap in his busy schedule to tell us about his two decades in the co-driver’s seat.
RISE: How did your rally career start?
Lucas Cruz: It all started in 1994 at a race of Volant RACC with Miguel Ángel Fernández. My father had a garage and after I went to watch Rally de Catalunya it took only three months to take part in my first race. It was quite an experience because I didn’t ask for permission of my parents I just asked to wash a racing suit for me because tomorrow I’m going to race.
After this rally I started to race in the Championship of Catalonia and in other events with various drivers, I just jumped into any car with any driver because I understood that the more kilometres, the more experience and knowledge.
In 1998 I became part of Carlos Sainz Junior Team and for that I had tough times having to learn all the regulations, calculations and other things related to rally racing. I was co-driver of Oscar Fuertes and I am very happy with the experience. We spent many weekends at the tracks, I think maybe 35 or so, we took part in a lot of rallies, varied with working as car 0 and many kilometres of testing. All with the aim of improving and with the satisfaction to leave nothing undone, I mean, if others were in front of us, it was because they were better, not because we hadn’t done everything possible. 
In 2000 I took part in gravel rallies and this was also the year when I competed in a cross-country rally event for the first time. That was Baja Aragón, in its old format “non stop”, and it took about 11 hours or more to finish.
RISE: How did you end up in cross-country rallies?
Lucas Cruz:
I wanted to learn and to gain more experience, and spent some seasons racing in gravel rallies in a Ford Focus of Ford Junior Team, we did the whole Spanish Championship with one more rally in the UK. I stayed for three years with Ford.
In 2001 I raced in the Pharaons Rally and in 2005 I became Spanish champion in cross-country rallies with Solé, later I was co-driver with Climent, Cañellas and finally with Mark Blázquez in the Nissan Spain Factory Team, but before I was in the Honda Spain Factory Team with Climent.
In 2006 I accompanied Mark Blázquez in cross-country rallies and Albert Llovera in gravel rallies. At the midpoint of the season I received a call from Nani Roma inviting me to occupy the co-driver’s seat of his Mitsubishi after Henri Magné’s accident in Morocco. I was part of the preparation and competed at the last African Dakar with Nani in the MPR 13.
RISE: Could you tell us about your time at Volkswagen and your victory at the Dakar 2010?
Lucas Cruz:In 2009 I signed to Volkswagen o be the co-driver of Carlos Sainz, we raced together at the Rally dos Sertoes in Brazil and at the Silk Way Rally in Russia, and took the victory at both events.
The Dakar 2010 was very intense, I remember that we had a lot of pressure on us and we had very tense moments. I didn’t have too much experience in competing at the highest level, and it wasn’t easy to be with Carlos in a race where he had a big pressure on him because of retiring from the lead in 2009. Over the days we began to have more and more confidence in each other and even if I didn’t have enough experience to be trusted, I noticed that I have everything, that Carlos ask for, ready. This resulted in victory after a hard battle up until the last kilometres.
I remember that after the Dakar victory Carlos told me that he could never had imagined that one of the members of Carlos Sainz Junior Team would be on his side scoring the first Dakar victory for Spain.
RISE: And now you again compete with Carlos Sainz, this time in Peugeot team. Is this the start of a new era?
Lucas Cruz:We can say this is a brand new story, very funny with a brand new product that is really different. The configuration and geometry of the car is like a 4×4 but in fact it is a 2WD. It is very exciting because the project started from zero. All is from zero. In all teams I’ve worked with so far, everything was tested before and the cars are the last evolution of a long term work. But at Peugeot I can suggest a lot of things from my experience. Because, in the end, I’ve been in rallies for twenty years.
