Spanish driver Nani Roma won the Dakar Rally, 10 years after he clinched the motorcycle title in the gruelling event.
Roma, 42, overturned a 26-second overnight deficit on his Mini teammate and 11-time champion Stephane Peterhansel to take victory.
South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers (Toyota) won the stage, the 13th and final one of the race over 157km from La Serena, with Roma in second and 2011 champion Nasser Al Attiyah of Qatar taking third.
Roma becomes just the third man to win the Dakar title on two and four wheels after Peterhansel and Hubert Auriol.
His win came after a controversial two days when Mini insisted on team orders which would have seen Roma, Peterhansel and Al Attiyah complete a podium lockout for the manufacturers.
But Friday saw Roma suffer a puncture, allowing Peterhansel to retake the overall lead. It was unclear in the immediate aftermath of yesterday’s conclusion whether or not the Mini drivers had received new instructions.
Peterhansel, a six times champion on two wheels and five times on four, was fourth on the final stage and took second place overall, 5min 38sec behind his teammate.
Al Attiyah, meanwhile, was left to rue the one hour penalty he collected for missing waypoints on the 10th stage as he finished 56min 52sec behind Roma.
“I always had it in my head that I wanted to win in a car after winning the motorcycles,” said Roma. “The second week with hard, long stages wasn’t easy.”
Spain’s Marc Coma (KTM) won his fourth motorcycle title, despite the 13th and final stage being won by France’s Cyril Despres (Yamaha), the defending champion.
Joan Barreda (Honda) of Spain came in second and French rider Olivier Pain (Yamaha) in third, but it was Coma who came out on top, winning by a huge margin of 1hr 52min 27sec.
“This represents a lot of sacrifices,” said 37-year-old Coma. “It was an extreme course with some good moments and some hard times.
The quads category was won by Chilean Ignacio Casales with Poland’s Rafal Sonik second and The Netherlands’ Sebastian Husseini third.
Russian Andrey Karginov, The Netherlands’ Gerard de Rooy and another Russian, Eduard Nikolaev were classified first, second and third respectively in the trucks category.
The 36th edition of the Dakar Rally proved one of the toughest with temperatures soaring to 47 degrees at one stage.
It also witnessed the death of one competitor – Belgian motorcyclist Eric Palante on the fifth stage between Chilecito and Tucuman – as well as two Argentine reporters.
