The toughest Dakar Rally held in South America, with just 204 of 434 vehicles making it to the finish, was dyed in the red and yellow colours of Catalonia with Marc Coma and Jordi Viladoms taking the top two places in the bikes category and Nani Roma winning in cars class.
Behind the two KTM riders, Frenchman Olivier Pain rounded off the podium after fending off late attacks from Cyril Despres.
In the cars category, Roma topped the Mini 1-2-3 podium with Stephane Peterhansel and Nasser Al Attiyah in second and third respectively.
Ignacio Casale also put his name on the list of winners as the 26-year-old Chilean quad rider took a home win, while in the truck category Russian Andrey Karginov held on to his lead over Gerard de Rooy by a hair’s breadth.
The 36th edition of the biggest rally raid in the world though started with a surprise and ended in controversy as Portugal’s Carlos Sousa grabbed his sixth Dakar win and the first for Chinese manufacturer Haval in the car’s category.
The overall winner’s name was anybody’s guess until the 13th and final stage. Carlos Sainz in his SMG Buggy won two stages and led the stand-ings after stage four but was forced to go home following a silly crash in the link section of stage 10.
Giniel de Villiers was the only driver able to take the fight to the Minis, finishing fourth overall.
And then there was the controversy generated by X-raid’s team orders for the last three days – to maintain the running order, meaning Peterhansel was told not to overtake Roma.
The controversy and group finish of the leading Minis, handing the overall win to Roma, became the talking point of the rally.
But Peterhansel nevertheless wrote a new chapter in Dakar history with a total of four stage wins that propelled him to the top of the all-time record of 65 victories.
Nasser Al Attiyah took his third Dakar podium, but he will long regret failing to find all the waypoints on stage 10, the resulting penalty of one hour costing him a possible second title to the one he won in 2011.
The 2014 Dakar will go down in history as a unique edition!
