MINI ALL4 Racing Dominates the 2013 Paris-Dakar Endurance Race
Photography provided by Andreas Lampka with BMW Group
The 35th version of the Road Rally is classic to endurance racing as it remains the most savage professional race around the world. With Paris-Dakar 14 stages and 4 classes (bike, quads, cars, trucks) of competition that gather 448 vehicle entries that go the distance of 8,500 kilometers. It all began in Peru and concluded in Chile.
The final parade and the prize-giving ceremony staged on a lectern set up downtown as the thirty-fifth copy of the Dakar Rally drew to a close. The parade included all the teams who managed to finish the race that commenced on the 5th January in Lima, Peru and finally rolled into the Chilean capital some 8,500 km (5,270 miles) later. Joining the parties was the Husqvarna Rallye Team by Speedbrain, one of the main protagonists this year. This has been the second official collaboration in the Dakar for the Husqvarna Rallye Team by Speedbrain. The race has been a superb display of all of the work carried out by the squad's technicians at the Dakar, as well as in the factory in Varese, Italy. An amazing effort was made also by the personal riders aboard their Husqvarna TE044s who managed to take on and complete this great challenge.
Klaus Allisat, president Husqvarna Motorcycles: "A big thank you" to the entire Husqvarna Rallye Team by Speedbrain; to the 4 factory riders, Joan, Alessandro, Paulo and Matt, to Berti Hauser, and ultimately to everyone who has worked so hard in Varese and behind the scenes in Stephanskirchen. Husqvarna has finished first after many stages and we should be awfully happy with the result especially in consideration that's only the 2nd attempt at the Dakar. It's been a great 2012 season of rallies for Husqvarna. We won the Pharaons with Barreda on the TE244RR by Speedbrain and also had a great result in the Morocco Rally where we were second. We had a goal for the Dakar; to push hard for vistory and we did just that. We achieved victory 4 stages out of 14, and gained twelve podium places, and this is a dream made reality for everybody at Husqvarna.
Berthold Hauser, Dakar Project leader in BMW: "First of all I'd like to say how pleased I'm that everyone in the team made it in one piece to Santiago, which is not easy in a rally that is so hard, not only on the hardware, but also on the players. Even though we did not reach our original aim, we've learnt a great deal from this race. It's a particular rally where we obtain information that no other race can supply. We've noted down and memorized everything to be able to improve for our next participation. I can already feel the willingness and motivation to think ahead to the next Dakar and the forthcoming events. The basics are now all in place; the team, the bike and the riders. That is the reason why I have got to tip my hat to Wolfgang Fischer for the work he's done in putting such a great team together".
Munich/Santiago de Chile. It looks to be unstoppable. The French couple of Stephane Peterhansel and co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret have won the Dakar Rally 2013 in a MINI ALL4 Racing in a repeat of last year's success. With their overall time of 38:32.39, the lead pairing of the privately-entered Monster Energy X-raid Team from Trebur, Germany passed over the finish line in Santiago de Chile 42:22 minutes ahead of their nearest pursuers in the general classification. For Peterhansel, his 2nd win in the MINI ALL4 Racing was also his career 11th win in the Dakar.
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"This is an impressive victory and I'd like to congratulate him for MINI not only to Stephane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret, but also to Sven Quandt's entire X-raid Team," enthused Dr Kay Segler, Senior Vice President MINI Brand Management. The win of the MINI ALL4 Racing team last year was without doubt a shock for many individuals. But now it is obvious to all that this was not by chance. Anyone who comes home first after 8,600 kilometers (approx. 5,300 miles) in the planet's hardest rally has completed something superb. We are wonderfully proud to count these fantastic rivals as part of the MINI family.
As last year, the X-raid Team was a repeated strong contender in the Dakar Rally MINI 2013. Peterhansel took control of at the top of the classification after only two stages and protected his lead all of the way to the finish. The racing in the pack included the pairing of Leonid Novitskiy and Konstantin Zhiltsov in another MINI ALL4 Racing, who finally completed the Dakar Rally 2013 in 3rd place.
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