Euromilhões Lisboa Dakar 2007: The Dakar > The Rally

The Dakar is a race, the toughest rally in the World: over two weeks of hard work and thousands of kilometres over various tracks. Each year since 1979, crews including men and women, enjoy an intense rivalry in the middle of the desert. The final result always rewards an incredible winner. Indeed, more than elsewhere, success on a Dakar comes from a synthesis between performance, determination and regularity.

Beyond the borders of victory, the real essence of a Dakar is the challenge. A competitor battles both with the others but also with himself, in a context where humility is just as important as going beyond oneself. With objectives that match their capabilities, the candidates in this adventure have in common this search for balance.

As a link between two continents, the Dakar takes off to meet African countries with a specific attraction for the desert. As the traditional city to host the finish, Senegal’s capital is historically and sentimentally linked to the rally. However the competitor’s will to discover new places has regularly brought the Dakar organizers to change the race course, with for example finishes in Cape town (1992), Cairo (2000) or Sharm-el-Sheik (2003). Out of a total of 53 African nations, the Dakar has visited 21.

In 2007, the rally will start for the second time of its history in Portugal. The race will then head through Morocco, Mauritania, Mali and Senegal.

African countries visited by the Dakar (.pdf)

With 475 vehicles in the race at the start (232 bikes, 174 cars and 69 trucks, a total of 775 people), the 2006 Dakar registered a record participation. Eventually, 93 bikers, 66 cars and 35 trucks managed to finish the 28th Dakar, Luc Alphand in a car and Marc Coma on two-wheels both clinching their first ever overall successes. Vladimir Chagin, behind the steering-wheel of his Kamaz truck, claimed his fifth crown.

One man is better than the rest. The Dakar history book reveals to whoever wants to read it, the domination of one man on the event: Stéphane Peterhansel. A six-time winner on a bike, the Frenchman has added two titles to his collection after switching to four wheels. Before him, among the men who have written the Dakar legend, only Hubert Auriol, known as "the African", had won the rally in two different categories, with a total of three crowns. The bike fanatics certainly also have in mind the likes of Cyril Neveu, winner of the first two Dakars behind the handle-bars of his Yamaha 500 XT, and then three other editions on a Honda. Richard Sainct (3 victories) and Fabrizio Meoni (2 victories), who were both victims of their passion for the desert in the same period of time, have also a privileged place in the memories of the rally.

The days of Ari Vatanen and precisely his four victories behind the steering-wheel of a 205 and then 405 Peugeot, has made the Finn into an icon of the rally. A WRC champion in 1982, Vatanen made the most of his aggressive driving on rally-raid events. It was on circuits, including Formula one tracks, that Jean-Louis Schlesser learned his driving skills. In his very own blue buggies, the Frenchman won the event twice but never managed to catch up with the most impressive of the pioneers, René Metge, winner of three editions. Jutta Kleinschmidt, who, like many others, had a first taste of the Dakar riding a bike as an amateur, remains today the only woman to have won the event and that was in a car in 2001.

In the truck category, the current domination of the Kamaz trucks with their leader Vladimir Tchaguine (5 victories) appears to be a chase for Karel Loprais’ record. Indeed the Czech driver has the most impressive CV: Six Dakar wins between 1988 and 2001.