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Sainz Says Goodbye to WRC

Carlos Sainz has vowed that the Acropolis Rally was his last World Rally Championship event

The double World Rally Champion was called out of retirement by his former Citroen team for the last two rallies, to give regular driver Francois Duval a break after the Frenchman crashed three times in his first six starts for the team.

Duval will return to the team at the next round in Argentina.

"You can be sure I'm not going to do any more WRC," Sainz declared. "I have been here long enough. It was a difficult decision to do what we decided to do. I am very pleased with the two results of the last two rallies, you have to think that going off the road or something was going to be a disaster. I am very satisfied with the two results.

"I'm sure they're going to be very, very strong . I have a lot of pleasure in this and Turkey. I'm very happy to end this period of more than 15 years with a podium. I won here 15 years ago and now I have a podium here.

"When I decided to come back, I realised how much I love rally and all of the teams, the drivers, the people. It has been my life. I have a great pride for driving this last rally."

Sainz also paid respect to Ford's Toni Gardemeister, who pipped him for second place on the event.

"Toni did a fantastic rally, but when I saw him this morning in the first stage, it was very clear in my mind, I don't want to risk the result for the team. I'm not doing the Drivers' Championship. It was very clear the best result for the team was Sebastien to win and for me to be on the podium.

"For me to fight with Toni, I would have to take the risk. I would not accept it if I put all this effort in to the rally and then ended in the ditch. I hope at the end of the year this effort from myself and [co-driver] Marc [Marti] will pay off."

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