He also has an older brother named Antonio Sainz, born on 10 December 1957, who was also a rally driver.
Sainz was born in Madrid.
Before moving into motorsport, he played football and squash.
As a teenager, Real Madrid gave him a trial and in squash he was the Spanish champion at the age of 16.
He got his first touch of motorsport in Formula Ford while still playing squash and football.
Before dedicating himself to motorsport, Sainz studied law up to the second scheduled cycle.
1962
Carlos Sainz Cenamor (born 12 April 1962) is a Spanish rally driver.
He won the World Rally Championship drivers' title with Toyota in and, and finished runner-up four times.
Constructors' world champions to have benefited from Sainz are Subaru, Toyota and Citroën (, and ).
1980
Sainz began rallying in 1980.
1986
He finished runner-up in the Spanish Rally Championship in 1986, in a Group B Renault 5 Turbo, and won it with a Ford Sierra RS Cosworth in 1987 and 1988.
1987
Ford gave him his first World Rally championship appearances during the 1987 season.
He finished seventh in the Tour de Corse and eighth on the RAC Rally.
He remained with Ford for the following season, now co-driven by Luis Moya, who remained his regular co-driver for the next fifteen years.
He finished fifth twice, in the Tour de Corse and the Rallye Sanremo, and seventh on an icy RAC Rally.
1988
Ford were an increasingly minor player in the World Rally Championship, with the rear-wheel-drive Sierra uncompetitive against the four-wheel-drive cars, and struggled to retain ambitious and talented young drivers such as Sainz and his teammate in 1988, Didier Auriol.
1989
Both departed the team for 1989; Auriol to Lancia and Sainz to Toyota Team Europe, the Japanese marque's rallying arm operating in Cologne, Germany.
Despite all previous rallying Toyota Celicas having only ever looked a competitive prospect on highly specialized endurance rallies such as the Safari Rally, the new combination of Toyota and Sainz rapidly rose in competitiveness.
In the 1989 season, Sainz started with four retirements but then finished on the podium in three rallies in a row.
His teammate, by then two-time world champion Juha Kankkunen, also gave the Celica GT-Four ST165 its debut win at the inaugural Rally Australia.
Sainz would almost certainly have won his first World Championship Rally on the final event of the season, the RAC Rally, but for mechanical failure in the final stages, which relegated him to second.
1990
In the 1990 season, Sainz drove his GT-Four to victory at the Acropolis Rally, at the Rally New Zealand, at the 1000 Lakes Rally, as the first non-Nordic driver, and at the RAC Rally, claiming his first world drivers' title, ahead of Lancia's Didier Auriol and Kankkunen, ending the Italian marque's domination of the drivers' world championship since the advent of the Group A era of the sport in 1987.
In, Sainz narrowly failed to defend his title against a resurgent Lancia-mounted Kankkunen, his efforts capped by a dramatic roll of his Celica in Australia which left him in a neckbrace.
Both Sainz and Kankkunen took five wins, the first time in the history of the WRC that two drivers had managed such a win tally during one season.
Sainz led Kankkunen by one point going into the final round of the season, the RAC Rally, where Kankkunen took his third title by winning ahead of Kenneth Eriksson and Sainz.
Kankkunen's and Sainz's point totals, 150 and 143, both broke the record set by Sainz a year earlier (140).
1992
Aboard the new ST185 Toyota Celica in the 1992 season, in a year that would prove the last for the foreseeable future for Lancia, Sainz managed to score memorable victories on the Safari Rally and on his home asphalt round, the Rally Catalunya.
The title fight again went down to the wire, and this time in a three-way battle; before the RAC, Sainz led Kankkunen by two points and Auriol, who had taken a record six wins during the season, by three points.
Sainz's victory ahead of Ari Vatanen and Kankkunen, combined with Auriol's retirement, confirmed the title in favour of the Spaniard.
A limited number of 440 Celica GT-Four ST185s, carrying his name on a plaque in the vehicle, and with decals on the outside, were sold in the United Kingdom in 1992 in an attempt to capitalise on Sainz's two championship successes with the works team.
These were the part of the 5,000 units of ST185 for WRC homologation.
2010
Alongside his WRC successes, he has won the Dakar Rally (2010, 2018, 2020, 2024), the Race of Champions (1997) and the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship (1990).
His co-drivers were Antonio Boto, Luis Moya, Marc Martí and Lucas Cruz.
His son, Carlos Sainz Jr., is also a professional racing driver, currently competing for Scuderia Ferrari in Formula One.
2018
In the 2018 season he was one of the official drivers of the Team Peugeot Total.
2020
He received the Princess of Asturias Sports Award in 2020.
Sainz founded the Acciona | Sainz XE Team to join Extreme E and competed in the first two seasons alongside Laia Sanz.
Nicknamed El Matador, Sainz previously held the WRC record for most career starts until Finnish co-driver Miikka Anttila broke the record.
He was also the first non-Nordic driver to win the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland.
He came close to repeating the feat at the Swedish Rally, finishing second four times and third twice.
