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Laia Sanz (Corbera de Llobregat, 1985) competed at the age of seven for the first time. And at twelve he got his first victory in a boys’ championship, with his 80 cc motorcycle, his projection was marked. In 2000 he won his first trial world championship and only thought about the great raid. The rider contested eleven editions on a motorcycle in the Dakar, something that changed last year. In 2021 she changed the two wheels for the four. the veteran pilot stepped out of his comfort zone to get behind the wheel of a car.
And it is that she recognizes being a “great passionate about cars”. “Obviously they are a tool to move around, to go to work… but I am also passionate about driving, cars have always caught my attention, and not just racing ones,” Sanz stresses to this newspaper.
The pilot got her driver’s license as soon as possible. In fact, the theory already at the early age of 16, “and four days after turning 18, I already got the practical”, she explains.
He remembers his first car with nostalgia. «It was a Citroën Saxo from my mother, which my brother inherited and then me. In fact, it was a bit of a joker car at home and I used it for a while until I was able to buy my first car of my own. This was a BMW Compact, just as I had a van that I used to travel to train », he details, at the same time that, between laughs, he reveals that« that first safe car that hides many secrets, both my brother and mine, since in the end at 18 you do something stupid, and more so we who came from the races. I could tell you some other adventure«.
The experienced pilot has traveled halfway around the world, so it is sometimes difficult for her to remember, for example, where her first long trip went. “I have done so many trips that I don’t remember the first one driving myself, especially since I did many with my parents and with the team. Although I do remember a trip alone in a motorhome to Finland, a little after getting my license, to go to a race and it seemed eternal because it was a three-day journey.
Currently, Laia drives a Mini Countryman JCW, with which she is “really happy”. She likes to highlight the “good mix between sportiness and practicality”. «The car is great because it has sports car sensations, the engine is amazing, the finishes are super good; and it is very useful to me because it is ‘small’ but I can travel, take my bicycle or my dogs », she underlines.
Laia emphasizes that, at the time of choose a car, look for a balance between aesthetics, mechanics and emissions. “I think it’s the sum of everything. It would be hard for me to drive an ugly car no matter how efficient or powerful it might be. I think it has to be a balance of everything, the three things are very important: it has to be powerful, balanced in consumption and emissions, and logically aesthetics. It has to be a nice car.”
As a good pilot, she prefers to be behind the wheel “always, it is quite difficult for me to go to the side. It would have to be someone trustworthy, with whom I have a lot of confidence, because if not I don’t relax. And in the sporting field the same, it has to be a pilot in whom I trust a lot. she details her. In addition, “it makes me quite insecure to go to the side, that’s why I’m a bit heavy as a co-pilot,” she adds.
Finally, it should be noted that Laia’s garage is not lacking in vehicles. Store your car, a van, a 4×4 “to go to the dunes to play”, mountain, road and electric bikes, the ‘motor home’, and enduro and trial bikes, as well as a ‘side by side’ . “And obviously many bikes from my racing career that I’ve been saving for myself, possibly twenty,” he concludes.