STAT OF THE DAY: 50
It was likely to happen and Nasser Al Attiyah’s accomplishment of a half-century could even have happened earlier. It was probably not a calculated move, but the Qatari chose the day before the final stage, the day on which he secured a virtually certain triumph in the race’s premium category, to equal the record of stage victories that he now shares with Ari Vatanen and Stéphane Peterhansel. This achievement provides the opportunity to look back at the fantastic series of victories accomplished by his two predecessors.
Ari Vatanen began his winning streak on his first participation on the Dakar in 1987, winning 3 stages before claiming the first of his four titles. It was then in 2004 that the Finnish driver went on to claim his 50th stage success in Er Rachidia (on stage 4), on his return to the Dakar at the wheel of a Nissan pick-up. His heyday was long behind him by then, having grabbed his 49th stage win in 1996.
Stéphane Peterhansel’s story is very different because he had already won the Dakar 6 times on two wheels, with 33 specials under his belt, before switching to four wheels in 1998. It was during the 2000 edition (Dakar-Cairo) that he won his first stage in a car, in Mali at Kayes, driving a Mega. His fiftieth success dates back to 2024. At the time, ‘Mister Dakar’ was driving an Audi RS Q e-tron, in which he suffered greatly on the first stage, losing more than half an hour on the route to Al Henakiyah. However, the very next day, he made up for it by bringing up victory number fifty. For Al Attiyah, it is still a work in progress. …
