As the 2016 Dakar Rally is currently on in full steam. Here are a bunch of riders who defined the Dakar Rally over the years. These people have taken the most number of stages and wins, and between them have left little gold for anyone else!

First up, is a man who has been around at the Dakar for 28 years and counting! Stephane Peterhansel made his debut at the 1988 Dakar Rally on a Yamaha and finished 18th in his very first attempt. Peter, as he is better known, on his 2nd outing at the rally saw him finish a very strong 4th, before being disqualified in 1990. In ’91 he came back strongly to take his maiden win and then followed it up by another two in 1992 and ’93, making it a hat trick, a mind boggling feat considering the treacherous conditions of the Dakar Rally.  He took another 3 wins till 1998 all on board his Yamaha, making it 6 wins in total before he decided to retire from motorcycles. But what was a loss for the two wheeled world was a gain for four wheels. From 1999 he found himself behind the wheel of a Nissan, Mitsubishi, BMW, Mini and Peugeot where he has already racked up 5 wins and is currently at the top of the 2016 Dakar Rally at the end of stage 5. Without doubt, he is the most successful rider/ driver in the history of Dakar. Unlike most modern day racers, Peterhansel wasn’t into bikes and cars from a very young age, he was a gifter skateboarder and champion skateboarder at age 13. It was only when he turned 16 that he entered his first motocross race and never looked back since! His reason for retiring from motorcycles was that he broke the record for number of wins set by Cyril Neveu.

Name: Stephane Peterhansel
Date of Birth: 06-08-1965
Country of Birth: France
Dakar Debut: 1988
No. of Dakar wins: 6

Stephane Peterhansel, Photo Courtesy: Wikipedia

Which brings us to our second Superhero, the man who took the win at the inaugural Dakar Rally in 1979 Cyril Neveu. He was born in 1956 won the Dakar 5 times between 1979 and 1987. His first two victories were with Yamaha, before he started racing with Honda and picked up another three victories. At the age of 23 he rode on board his Yamaha 500XT, 10000 km from Paris to Dakar. He was fortunate to have the support of his family, and his brother drove the support car in the first edition. Though he didn’t win a single stage, he was consistent enough to take the overall win. He was a man of a short physical stature, but he had a very big heart. After taking his second straight win in 1980, he moved to Honda, where he suffered multiple technical problems which didn’t allow him to fight for the win. He raced at the Dakar for the final time in 1991 and realized that it was time to move on as the youngsters had upped the game and he had gotten slower and was less willing to take risks with age. After retiring from competitive racing he took up organising rallies, since that was always where his heart lay.

Name: Cyril Neveu
Date of Birth: 20/09/1956
Country of Birth: France
Dakar Debut: 1979
No. of Dakar Wins:  5

Cyril Neveu, Photo Courtesy: Honda Racing

Marc Coma is the reigning Dakar Rally winner, since he won the 2015 edition on his Red Bull KTM. Born in 1976, this Spanish rallyist is one of the most successful competitors at Dakar, taking his first win in 2006, 4 years after he first took up the Dakar challenge. In 2002, his first year at the Dakar, Coma raced a Suzuki which broke down midway when he was running a very high 7th place. He then joined the KTM squad the next year and did well in stages, but finished 18th overall. 2004 saw him suffer head injuries which saw him make a comeback in 2005, where he took his first stage win. He finally got the much prized Dakar win in 2006. Marc’s Dakar victories are ever more significant as he was battling teammate and seasoned veteran Cyril Despres. He won some and lost some to his teammate, but thanks to the two, KTM saw an uninterrupted winning streak of 14 years! He took his final Dakar win in 2015, after an illustrious career. He retired from competitive riding and many assumed he would return to the Dakar that he loved in a car. But that wasn’t to be, he returned but this time as the Sporting Director of the Dakar Rally. He is part of the team which chalks out the route for others to race on. His experience as a rider is a big asset in the organizing committee. Coma believed this switch would help him give back to the sport that gave him so much.

Name: Marc Coma
Date of Birth: 7/10/1976
Country of Birth: Spain
Dakar Debut: 2002
No. Of Dakar Wins: 5

A video made by KTM in tribute to Marc Coma –

Marc Coma, Photo Courtesy: KTM Racing

What’s in a name you might say, but after Cyril Neveu, it was the turn of another Cyril to dominate the Dakar. Teammate to Coma, Cyril Despres was the other KTM rider to have won the Dakar a total of 5 times. Cyril didn’t have the typical motorsport championship winning childhood. He was child to parents who ran a restaurant on the motorway, and for his communion, he was gifted some money, with which he went ahead and bought himself an 80cc trials bike, without even telling his parents! After a rollercoaster career, which saw him overcome several financial hardships to race. He finally found himself on board a BMW in 2001 where he took his first stage win finishing 12th. By 2003 he had worked his way up to 2nd in the overall classification and it was a matter of time before he would climb the top step. His crowning glory came in  2005, where he picked up his first win in the Dakar with KTM. He went on to take four more wins in 2007, 2010, 2012 and 2013. For 2014 he switched to Yamaha, from where he retired from motorcycles and took up racing cars. In the 2015 edition Despres was sat behind the wheel of a Peugeot. He had a difficult first year and we wonder if he will be able to successfully follow in the footsteps of his compatriot Stephane Peterhansel.

 Name: Cyril Despres
Date of Birth: 24/01/1974
Country of Birth: France
Dakar Debut: 2001
No. of Dakar Wins: 5

Cyril Despres

But for us in India, the biggest Superhero of the Dakar Rally has to be CS Santosh. The first Indian to participate in this prestigious event. CS has raced in two editions of the Dakar. In 2015 he finished in 35th position overall a respectable result on his first outing on board a KTM. In 2016, his Suzuki 450 gave him considerable trouble from the start of the rally and on the marathon stage it stopped working and he was unable to repair it and as such he was forced to drop out.