Stephane Peterhansel and Peugeot winners of Dakar Rally 2016
Stephane Peterhansel won the Dakar Rally 2016 and increased his own record to 12 victories. It was also a historic moment for Peugeot, because the French manufacturer scored a victory 26 years after their last triumph back in 1990.
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Stephane Peterhansel has won with 35m advantage ahead of Nasser Al-Attiyah
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Sebastien Loeb was the fastest on four stages
The most successful driver in the history of Dakar Rally achieved a comfortable win with 35 minutes gap ahead of the last year’s winner Nasser Al-Attiyah. After Peterhansel’s biggest rival, Carlos Sainz, retired on Wednesday, Mr. Dakar had one hour lead ahead of Qatari. The only thing he had to do was to drive carefully, and it proved to be an easy task for him.
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The winner of the last stage was Sebastien Loeb, who scored four stage victories at his first Dakar. One more Dakar rookie, and former WRC driver, Mikko Hirvonen scored his first stage win on Friday and confirmed that he deserved the fourth place overall.
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Dakar rookie Mikko Hirvonen scored his first stage victory on the penultimate day
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Only Peugeot, Mini and Toyota in top 15
Third placed driver in the overall standings is South African Giniel de Villiers, who didn’t win any stage at this year’s Dakar, but the consistent driving with Toyota Hilux brought him the podium. Leeroy Poulter, another Toyota driver from South Africa, finished fifth overall.
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Nani Roma (Mini), Cyril Despres (Peugeot), Vladimir Vasilyev (Toyota), Sebastien Loeb (Peugeot) and Harry Hunt (Mini) rounded up the top 10 in the overall classification after 13 stages and more than 9000 km.
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Further in the standings there are Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Toyota), Orlando Terranova (Mini), Erik Van Loon (Mini), Martin Prokop (Toyota) and Jakub Przygonski (Mini). First driver on the list not to drive a Peugeot, Mini or Toyota is Miroslav Zapletal, who scored the 16th place with Hummer.
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Here’s the results of Dakar Rally 2016 at SnapLap result pages.
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Photos: www.dakar.com
