Buenos Aires, Argentina - Peugeot returns to the Dakar Rally after a 25-year absence with 2010 winner Carlos Sainz and 11-time champion Stephane Peterhansel handed the job of shattering BMW’s hopes of consecutive Mini clean sweeps.
Former double World Rally Champion Sainz will be driving for his third team in the gruelling 9000km race which will start on Sunday and crosses into Chile and Bolivia before ending in the Argentine capital on 17 January.
Sainz, whose 2010 Dakar title came in a Volkswagen, said: “The team has come up with a unique, innovative car which promises to be extremely versatile for the different types of terrain we are likely to come across.
“The concept works well. The test programme has shown that it is a very fast machine, although it is obviously difficult to be 100 percent sure of its reliability at this early stage.”
Peugeot won the Dakar for four consecutive from 1987-1990 when it was still staged in Africa.
This year's race, the seventh in South America since its enforced transfer for security reasons from Africa, is the 37th of all time and Sainz insists that Peugeot will be amongst the favourites.
“I have often competed against Peugeot Sport in the past and I have known for years just how passionate it is about motorsport,” said the 52-year-old Spaniard.
“I also know that when they decide on a programme, they put everything into it. I'm the same. Given how much I love the Dakar, it was too good a proposal to resist when Peugeot asked me to be part of its line-up for its comeback to this unique adventure.”
TEAM ORDERS
Peterhansel, six times a champion in the motorcycle competition and five times on four wheels, was second overall in the 2014 Dakar, finishing just behind Spain's Nani Roma.
Nasser Al-Attiyah, the 2011 champion in a Volkswagen, completed ab all-Mini podium 12 months ago, but Peterhansel was angry over the issuing of team orders in the closing stages of the race.
Peterhansel said of his new Peugeot: “The biggest problem we have is the fact we know we are quick - we just don't know how quick compared to everyone else.
“So the first phase of the rally will be just to test our pace: to know what we can achieve comfortably or not. This is actually the most important part of the strategy, as we will base everything on this knowledge.”
Peugeot's three-man line-up is completed by France's five-times motorcycle winner Cyril Despres, who will tackle the Dakar on four wheels for the first time.
MINI CHALLENGE
Roma became only the third man to win the Dakar title on two and four wheels - after Peterhansel and Hubert Auriol - when he won in 2014, 10 years after his maiden motorcycle triumph.
He will again lead the Mini challenge along with Al-Attiyah.
“The first few years were tough,” said 42-year-old Roma, who made his Dakar debut in 1996.
“2014 was far from easy. However, I had absolute faith in the Mini and the team did a super job.”
The 2015 race will take the Dakar caravan from the Atacama, the driest spot on the planet, to the Iquique dunes, crossing the Andes at the highest point on Argentina's Route 40, the 4970m mountain pass of Abra del Acay.
“It's going to be a marathon for everybody,” said Dakar race director Etienne Lavigne.
In all, there will be 4600km of special stages including a 781km time trial from the Bolivian city of Uyuni to Chile's Pacific Coast.
At Sunday's Buenos Aires start, more than 400 cars, motorcycles, quads and trucks will set off for what Lavigne describes as “the Everest of motorsport”.
AFP