The Dakar is not only for fans of rallies and adventure. There is also room in the caravan for professionals who are skeptical of dunes and dust. Like Dani Gratacós (45 years old), industrial motorsport engineer, in the asphalt industry. For this Barcelonan who works for Audi and previously worked for Peugeot, the Dakar came to him on the spur of the moment, at the request of Carlos Sainz. After five editions in the rally, Gratacós, head of Stéphane Peterhansel's car engineers, is one of the most coveted brainiacs.
Dani admits it with a small mouth: he became an engineer because he was a bit of a frustrated pilot.
–I am very realistic: to be a pilot you must have a lot of money. Since we saw cars and motorcycles at home, I decided to dedicate myself to this professionally. My idol was Carlos Sainz. I have his autograph from when he came to Barcelona for the Race of Champions in Montjuïc; I was 10 years old. He said: “For my friend Dani, with love: Carlos Sainz.” Life takes many turns, it's like I ended up working for him – Gratacós smiles. His professional career cannot be understood without the figure of the Matador.
He studied industrial engineering at the UPC on the advice of his mother, and after starting to work as a racing engineer at the age of 20 in GTs, going through F-3, through the DTM (with Sussie Wolff, Toto's wife, head of Mercedes, which offered Williams to go to F-1, and declined) and for GP2... in 2010 the Sainz crossed paths in his life.
–Emilio de Villota offered me a job as a track engineer for three races in the Spanish F-3 for “a person” who turned out to be Carlos Sainz junior. That's how I met his father. The same Sunday of the first race he told me: “Hey, Dani, what are you doing next year?”
Well, at the Matador's request that 2011 he acted as his son's track engineer in Formula Renault 2.0. And he no longer got rid of Carlos Sainz Sr....
A couple of years later, the Madrid native required him for the ambitious project that Peugeot was starting for the Dakar (2015-17), with Peterhansel, Cyril Despres, Sainz and who was joined by Sébastien Loeb. The best of the rally.
–I had never done off-road, only circuits. “Don't worry, I will support you, you will do well,” he told me. That's where my relationship with the Dakar began and my collaboration with Carlos as his car engineer.
They won the 2016 and 2017 Dakar (with Peterhansel) and in that biennium a close relationship was forged with Sainz; a work crush.
–It is a question of trust, of transparency. Carlos is very special, he is ultra-demanding: if he wants to go there, don't get in the way because he will walk over you. The best thing you can do is help him arrive sooner. Trust has been created because I have been the person with whom he spoke two or three times a day to find out what we were doing, how the project was going... It gave him extra confidence to have a Spanish engineer, who spoke his same language and who would choose the best for your car…
After three years away from the arena, when his life was going on quietly in Barcelona as technical director of Silence, the incoming call from Sainz appeared on his cell phone again: he offered to participate in Audi's electric car project for the Dakar, with Peterhansel and with him. He didn't think twice – his wife, Blanca, didn't allow it either – and Gratacós returned to the discomforts of the rally.
–The Dakar takes you to the extreme of everything; We don't work in a seat in the technical office, but rather you sit as best you can, with sand, hardly any toilets, with 30 showers for 5,000 guys, it's 15 days of racing, sleeping 4 hours a day, working and driving to make connections. 5-6 hours, arrive at the bivouac… It is a sequence followed by work, little sleep, cold, heat. The worst thing I have is getting little rest and hygiene. I like to start the day with a good shower and a coffee... –says Gratacós, for whom this will be his third edition as chief engineer of Monsieur Dakar's Audi, legend of the rally with 14 Tuaregs.
–Stéphane is very, very calm. He is very different from Carlos. He comes from the mentality of motorcycle riders, accustomed to working more alone, with smaller structures.
Whether Peterhansel says goodbye to the Audi project (and perhaps also the Dakar) with his 15th statuette will largely depend on Gratacós' work.
–Every time the car stops, my heart stops. But I try not to put pressure on myself – says Dani, who will continue in the Dakar “in another project”. No more clues.
–And Formula 1?
–Yes, they have tempted me. At the moment I'm not interested.
