“You need adrenaline to be alive”

Ferdinando Brachetti Peretti is a man of challenges and motors. The chairman and managing director of the Italian oil company API took on the Dakar for the first time in 2021, after he met Marco Piana, the iconic head of Xtremeplus Polaris Factory Team. At 60 years old, it was far from being his first motorised adventure. He has crossed several continents on his bike but claims he is too old to keep doing so… But not too old for the challenges of the desert, where he’s also used to nurturing his passion for photography. Assisted by Dakar veteran Rafael Tornabell, the businessman brought his SSV to the finish in 27th place overall despite a mechanical that made him lose hours and hours on the penultimate day of racing. Unfortunately, Tornabell is unable to attend the 45th edition of the Dakar but Brachetti Peretti will enjoy the support of another experienced co-pilot, Matteo Casuccio, ready to make the most of the navigating skills he first developed in the sea.

F.B.P.: “For me, Dakar is passion. I’ve been motorcycling all my life. I crossed a few continents on my bike when I was younger. Now, I’m 62 years old so I can’t do it anymore. But I had the chance to do the Dakar in 2021 after I met Marco Piana. It was a fantastic challenge to try to do it for the first time at 60 years old. I wanted a new experience, you need adrenaline to be alive. In 2022, I didn’t have time to do the Dakar, I worked too much, but I wanted to take on the challenge of doing it again.
The biggest challenge was to go slowly. Rafael [Tornabell] was always pacing me in order to make it to the finish because I was going too fast for his taste. He said we had to preserve the car. It was very tiring also, when you have to drive 6, 8 or 9 hours a day, it’s quite tiring. We didn’t have many problems, I never got stuck in the sand. But the penultimate stage, I broke a tool so we lost a lot of time, almost 6 hours and we arrived at the bivouac at 3 AM. I was tired but very satisfied.”


M.C.: “I actually come from sailing and windsurfing, and then I started motorcycling at 30 years old and I did a few competitions. I had the mindset and I really loved riding my bike but I lacked experience so a friend told me I should look for events where navigation is key because that’s a skill I developed with sailing.
I did the Dakar for the first time in 2015 and I finished with 0 penalty for navigation. I always figured that if you’re good at this, that’s already 80% of the job done. If you get lost, it makes everything much more difficult, including mentally. So I’ll try to make Ferdinando as comfortable as possible. The confidence I’ll be able to give him will allow him to enjoy the driving.”