The fifteenth coronation will wait for Stéphane Peterhansel. “Mr. Dakar”, as he is nicknamed, experienced great disappointment on Sunday during the first auto stage following tearing the left rear wheel of his Audi hybrid buggy at kilometer 154. Peterhansel, forced to wait for his assistance for several hours, almost certainly wasted too much time dreaming of the final victory.
At 56, the man with fourteen Dakar victories (in motorbikes and then in cars) set off on Saturday with a new goal, to win the race in a hybrid car. “Is it really reasonable to want to cross the desert with an electric motor?” I think we have given our case a good thought. Audi weighed everything. We are obviously not going to look for charging stations in the desert ”he amused himself in our columns before the start. Despite this accident, however, his Dakar is not over.
It was the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota) who won in the car on the first special, Sunday in Ha’il, with more than 12 minutes ahead of the French Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive).
This 333 km loop around northern Saudi Arabia was the scene of great navigation difficulties for many competitors on all vehicles, causing already significant gaps.