Peterhansel wins Dakar Rally, Mini takes 1st, 3rd and 4th

Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel won the Dakar Rally for the 11th time in his career, although he finished 10th the final stage of the competition on Saturday.

The Dakar legend didn’t need to push however, as he had amassed an advantage of almost 40 minutes before the final round. All he had to do was make sure his Mini Countryman reached the finish line in Santiago de Chile.

The X-raid Mini driver has dominated the majority of the 2013 event, being constantly on the first position even before the retirements of the Red Bull Buggies driven by Carlos Sainz and Nasser Al-Attiyah. Peterhansel won the Dakar Rally with a lead of 43 minutes over Giniel de Villiers (Toyota).

The X-raid team dominated the rally, with four of the top five places being taken by its drivers. Nani Roma won the final stage, but fell behind team-mate Leonid Novitskiy to fourth in the overall standings when he waited to run as support to Peterhansel on the penultimate day.

Fifth place when to Orlando Terranova, on a BMW entered by X-raid. The Argentine driver finished a close second in the Dakar’s concluding stage. Guerlain Chicherit, on the rapid SMG Buggy, only finished eight in the overall standings behind Carlos Sousa (Great Wall) and team-mate Ronan Chabot.

Stage seven results:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Nani Roma X-raid Mini 1h44m10s
2. Orlando Terranova X-raid BMW + 13s
3. Lucio Alvarez Overdrive Toyota + 31s
4. Giniel de Villiers Imperial Toyota + 1m27s
5. Guerlain Chicherit SMG Buggy + 2m05s
6. Robby Gordon Gordon Hummer + 2m17s
7. Leonid Novitskiy X-raid Mini + 2m34s
8. Carlos Sousa Great Wall + 3m19s
9. Geoff Olholm Overdrive Toyota + 3m22s
10. Stephane Peterhansel X-raid Mini + 3m43s

Overall standings:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap
1. Stephane Peterhansel X-raid Mini 38h32m39s
2. Giniel de Villiers Imperial Toyota + 42m22s
3. Leonid Novitskiy X-raid Mini + 1h28m22s
4. Nani Roma X-raid Mini + 1h36m43s
5. Orlando Terranova X-raid BMW + 1h49m10s
6. Carlos Sousa Great Wall + 2h38m16s
7. Ronan Chabot SMG Buggy + 3h18m05s
8. Guerlain Chicherit SMG Buggy + 3h27m44s
9. Pascal Thomasse MD Buggy + 4h35m32s
10. Boris Garafulic X-raid Mini + 4h45m48s