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But it was Hiroshi Masuoka and Andreas Schulz who cruised their Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution through the final 34km stage at Sharm El Sheikh to win the Dakar by 1 hour 52min 12 secs from team-mates Jean-Pierre Fontenay and Gilles Picard.
This is Masuoka's second Dakar win in a row, and also a double for Schulz. He was Jutta Kleinschmidt's co-driver when she won in 2001.
Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret, who led for most of the event, lost the rally after smashing a wheel against a rock and damaging the front suspension, but they got going again and eventually were elevated from fourth to third as a result of a 10 hours servicing penalty on Saturday against Miki Biaison/Tiziano Siviero in the fourth works Pajero.
Carlos Sousa and Henri Magne gave Mitsubishi a first-to-fourth result, thanks to their performance in the L200 pickup (Colt in South Africa)..
Outpaced in the earlier African stages by Peterhansel, and the victim of five punctures in one day on the volcanic rock of the Sabha-Zilla stage in Libya, Masuoka played a waiting game.
"Every day we were doing 160 to 180km/h and it was exciting to race against Stéphane, but in the second half we were more careful and reduced our speed to save the car," he said.
Final stage
On the final stage, former World Rally Champion Ari Vatanen, teamed with Tina Thorner in a second Proudly South African Nissan Hardbody, set the fastest time of 16 min 32 secs, giving Vatanen his 49th Dakar stage victory, most of the others having come some years ago when Peugeot was the dominant force in desert races with the mid-engined 205.
"I have not yet reached 50 stage wins, so I will have to come back! I am very pleased to have rediscovered the whole Dakar atmosphere. I've met up with some old friends, and made some new ones. In this sort of adventure, the human experience is just as important as the overall performance," he said.
Luc Alphand/Matthew Stevenson were runners-up on the stage at 1 min 16 secs, and Jutta Kleinschmidt and Fabrizia Pons were third in their Volkswagen Tarek at 1 min 19 secs. Biasion/Siviero were fifth fastest in the other works Mitsubishi Pajero, with Sousa/Magne sixth.
Giniel de Villiers and Pascal mamion in the Nissan Hardbody - a worthy fifth place
Overall, behind the four Mitsubishis at the head of the results list, Giniel de Villiers, on his first Dakar with the experienced Pascal Maimon as co-driver, gave Nissan a fine fifth place.
But it was a very close-run thing.
"We had a big scare this morning, when the camshaft broke after 18 km. The car was going slowly, but we could not stop. To go through the checkpoint, Pascal got out and started to run alongside the car," he said. But he nursed the Nissan to the finish.
The Nissan team, and the rest of the competitors, were cheered by the news that Kenjiro Shinozuka is recovering well after his much-publicised accident earlier in the event. His co-driver Thierry Delli Zotti was at the foot of the podium at Sharm El Sheikh, wearing a surgical collar, but also doing well.
Volkswagen finished sixth with Stéphane Henrard/Bobby Willis, and eighth with Kleinschmidt/Pons. The two-wheel-drive diesel-engined buggy-like Tareks, on their competition debut, were never intended to go directly head-to-head with the Mitsubishis and Nissans.
Alphand and Stevenson placed ninth in their BMW X5 8 hours 56 mins 6 secs adrift of Masuoka.
There were three women competitors in the first eight finishers.
Vladimir Tchaguine won the truck category for Kamaz, and Richard Sainct was the motor-cycle winner for KTM.
Results
- cars|
1 |
Masuoka/Schulz (Mitsubishi) |
49h 08m 52s |
|
2 |
Fontenay/Picard (Mitsubishi) |
51h 01m 04s |
|
3 |
Peterhansel/Cottret (Mitsubishi) |
51h 25m 20s |
|
4 |
Sousa/Magne (Mitsubishi) |
51h 36m 39s |
|
5 |
De Villiers/Maimon (Nissan) |
51h 54m 47s |
|
6 |
Henrard/Willis (Volkswagen) |
52h 51m 07s |
|
7 |
Vatanen/Thorner (Nissan) |
53h 34m 51s |
|
8 |
Kleinschmidt/Pons (Volkswagen) |
57h 25m 48s |
|
9 |
Alphand/Stevenson (BMW) |
58h 04m 58s |
|
10 |
Monterde/Tornabell (Mitsubishi) |
58h 17m 11s |