The 2013 Dakar Rally

As you may know, the big daddy of all rallys, the "Paris-Dakar", was cancelled in 2008 due to security threats in Mauritania. Since then, it has been held in South America (Peru, Argentina and Chile) and was renamed the Dakar Rally. Of course, to me the greatest rally race is still the Paris-Dakar, maybe because North Africa is quite inhospitable. However, geo-political change in this area undermined the security of the event's organizers, teams and spectators, so the switch was unavoidable.

One thing hasn't changed though, and that was the winner of this year's overall race. The frenchman Stephane Peterhansel won the Dakar race for an incredible 11th time, and in commanding fashion (42 minute margin of victory).

The Dakar legend dominated the 2013 race in his X-raid Mini as the faster Red Bull Buggies of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz.

2013 race results:
Car:
1. Stephane PETERHANSAL (FRA) #302,
2. Giniel DE VILLIERS (FRA) #301,
3. Leonid NOVITSKIY (RUS) # 307,

Truck:
1. Eduard NIKOLAEV (RUS) #501,
2. Ayrat MARDEEV (RUS) #505,
3. Andrey KARGINOV(RUS) #510,

Bike:
1. Cyril DESPRES (FRA) #1
2. Ruben FARIA (PRT) #11,
3. Francisco LOPEZ (CHL) #7

Quad:
1. Marcos PATRONELLI (ARG) #250,
2. Ignacio Nicolas CASALE (CHL) #254,
3. Rafal sonik (POL) #253.

Thanks for reading.

Source: Dakar.com and Wikipedia.