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Mini All4 racing back for the 2015 Dakar

SAO PAULO, Brazil - The Mini All4 Racing team will return to South America to defend its crown at the 2015 Dakar Rally.

The 2015 edition will see competitors take on a gruelling 9000km across the South American continent, taking in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina.

Dakar veterans Nani Roma and his experienced co-driver Michel Perin, himself a four-time Dakar winner, are aiming to defend their crown behind the wheel of their Mini All4 Racing car.

'RUNS IN MY BLOOD'

Roma, who also won the 2004 Dakar Rally on a motorcycle, said: "The Dakar Rally is the most physically and mentally challenging rally in the world. After doing it 18 times it runs in my blood. Winning the 2014 Dakar Rally in the Mini All4 Racing was very special to me because it came 10 years after my first Dakar victory.

"The Mini All4 Racing has been strong from start to finish. It is the way we know the Mini to be: powerful, reliable and fast. It has been a key factor in making my most recent Dakar victory possible. It will be a pleasure to be back in the Mini as I am looking forward to the 2015 Dakar Rally - ready to defend my title.”

THE DAKAR

The 2015 Dakar Rally will have several new and some reinstated stages but is still the ultimate off-road orienteering challenge and endurance test. Competitors lose (on average) 65 litres of sweat and use 66 300 calories during the entire race*.

The key to a team’s success is their stamina and experience, with no driver under the age of 35 ever having won the race. In fact, over half of those who enter don’t finish.

In 2015 the world’s toughest motorsport event will return to its origins, opening up the exhausting marathon to all classes for the first time since the rally moved to South America in 2009. The most arduous leg of the race, in Bolivia, takes two race days through which competitors are left to fend for themselves.

They can't call on support teams; any repairs and maintenance have to be done themselves.  

Unlike standard rally events, crews don’t know the route until the night before when co-drivers receive the road book with the route show and dangers highlighted.

*Based on an average six hours of racing per day, over 13 days

Mini All4 Racing 2015 Dakar Rally line-up

Monster Energy Rally Raid Team

#300 Nani Roma/Michel Périn (ES/FR)
#305 Orlando Terranova/Bernardo "Ronnie“ Graue (AR/AR)
#306 Krzysztof Holowczyc/Xavier Panseri (PL/FR)

X-raid MINI ALL4 Racing crews

#310 Vladimir Vasilyev/Konstantin Zhiltsov (RU/RU)
#314 Erik van Loon/Wouter Rosegaar (NL/NL)
#319 Boris Garafulic/Filipe Palmeiro (CL/PT)
#329 Aidyn Rakhimbayev/Anton Nikolaev (KZ/RU)
#334 Stephan Schott/Holm Schmidt (DE/DE)

2015 Dakar route: Click on the image below

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