Giroud: slow and steady wins the race
Dakar 2026 |
Stage 2 |
YANBU
> ALULA
January 5
th
2026
- 21:09
[GMT + 3]
For his 10th Dakar, Alexandre Giroud, the former quad rider and two times winner of the category, is participating in the Challenger class like last year. At this stage of his new career, he still has some way to go before he can aim for another title. Bad luck has played a part but patience is his ally.
On the Dakar, it is common to go from anonymity to fame and vice versa. In an earlier part of his life, Alexandre Giroud experienced a period of success that taught him humility and perseverance. On arriving in South America for the first time in 2017, the rider from the Isère area had already caught the quad bug from his father Daniel, who in 1997 was the first to finish the Dakar on one of these machines considered at the time to be eccentric. However, the son was faced with the formidable competition of the Argentineans and Chileans, who dominated the category thanks to the Patronelli brothers, Ignacio Casale or Nicolas Cavigliasso. In his first two attempts, Giroud got stuck at the gates to the top 10 but then finally achieved consecration by winning the event in 2022 and 2023. Since the category has disappeared from the Dakar’s make-up, the Frenchman has been forced to convert to another vehicle, choosing the Challenger class, though his first experience ended with a premature exit. So, has yesterday’s champion become just another rookie, swapping his handlebars for a steering wheel? “Today, I don’t like not being out in front but, honestly, on the quad in the beginning it was worse – I was losing one to one and a half hours per day. I learned, we worked and the results were there for all to see. Today, it’s around ten minutes to a quarter of an hour, so there is no reason for it not to work. It took me three to four years to start to make a breakthrough on the quad and I won on my sixth attempt at the Dakar. Hopefully, I won’t have to wait as long!”
Clearly, Alexandre is lacking some of the reflexes specific to driving light prototypes that would allow him to compete at the top of the rankings. As if a delicate adjustment to this new vehicle was not annoying enough for the Frenchman, bad luck also disrupted his plans on the stage leading to AlUla. “We had two punctures after 37 km. We hadn’t any other spare wheels and one we used got a puncture as well, despite me being what I thought to be cautious. So, we had to drive with a flat tire. Because we were driving slowly, we had a bump with another car and, due to the impact, it gave us another puncture, meaning we’d had a total of four in 80 kilometres. The assistance truck arrived and fixed two of them but we still had time to have another flat tyre, which made five of them on the same day! We’re discovering the discipline but I rely on hard work rather than a stroke of luck, as those who know me will recognise. So, we’re going to work hard on it”. At the finishing line on the special, the driver of the team Rebellion-Spierings Taurus #308 trailed the day’s winner Lucas Del Rio by 1 hour and 39 minutes, in 20th position in the category. However, it would take much more than that to discourage him: “It’s complicated for your ego but I’m going to grit my teeth and bear it and stay cautious because on the Dakar, the aim is not to gain time but to lose as little as possible. A certain former quad rider called Nico Cavigliasso took three Dakar rallies in a car to get to that level, which shows that it is a learning curve for everybody”.
