In the office where she worked as an administrator, Patricia Sáiz began learning how to be a co-driver during coffee breaks. A new colleague, Yadira de Diego, competed in rallies and explained pacenotes, roadbooks and time cards to her. “I thought you had to be rich or famous to compete in rallying,” Patricia told ‘Cadena SER’. Seven years later, she is contesting her first World Rally Championship -WRC- event in Sardinia, alongside Dani Sordo in a factory Hyundai.
Patricia was already interested in motorsport: she liked motorbikes, quads and buggies. What she had never considered was sitting beside a rally driver. Yadira helped her find someone who was also starting out, and her first event came in 2020 at the Rallysprint de Rudagüera in Cantabria. She competed twice that year. What began as something new to learn gradually became a much larger part of her life.
From her first pacenotes to rallying in Cantabria
Her progress was swift, although it took her through different cars and championships before she reached the WRC. By her third event, she was co-driving a BMW M3 for one of the leading competitors in the Cantabrian championship. She later won the regional rallysprint title and the junior co-drivers’ classification alongside Fernando Prada. In 2023, she made her gravel debut at RallyRACC Catalunya with Álex Español, with whom she also competed in Opel’s European electric rally cup.
Those office lessons concerned a job that involves far more than reading out corners at speed. A co-driver prepares the route, calls the notes describing what lies ahead on each stage, and keeps track of timings and the road sections between stages. “We are the driver’s eyes,” Patricia told ‘Cadena SER’. Accuracy matters as much as pace: “If we get a corner wrong, it can cause an accident or cost us the rally.”
A message from Sordo and tears in Portugal
In 2025, Sordo sent her a message on social media. He needed a co-driver for the Rali Terras d’Aboboreira in Portugal because Cándido Carrera could not take part. Although both were from Cantabria, they barely knew each other. For Patricia, it meant competing on gravel in a Rally2 car for the first time, alongside a driver with Sordo’s experience. They adapted quickly enough to reach the final stage still fighting Kris Meeke for victory, but a puncture left them second.
Patricia cried at the finish. As she told ‘DirtFish’, it was neither the puncture nor the lost win that brought her to tears: she had suddenly realised how far she had come. She still remembers getting out of the car and hugging Meeke, his co-driver, and Sordo’s parents and friends. Sordo asked her to join him again at the Ypres Rally, where they finished fourth in a Porsche. “I felt complete trust. Being able to do your job at 100% because you trust the driver completely is incredible,” she said of their first event together.
Studies away from the car and a WRC debut
Rallying is still only one part of Patricia’s life. After years working as an administrator, she said in May that she was studying for a higher vocational qualification in livestock farming and animal health assistance. “Co-driving depends on many factors: the driver, the budget, injuries… You can find yourself without a drive from one year to the next,” she told ‘Cadena SER’. This season she has also continued competing in Spain alongside Surhayén Pernía in a Citroën C3 Rally2.
Her first WRC start comes directly in Sordo’s Hyundai i20 N Rally1. He won in Sardinia in both 2019 and 2020. Before this event, they tested the car on gravel and asphalt so Patricia could get used to its speed and to working inside it. Sordo already knew how she operated from their previous rallies together: “She calls the pacenotes very clearly, and that helps me concentrate.”
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