Mini’s foray into rally racing has begun to pay off in a most spectacular fashion: Mini All4 has won the Dakar rally. Veteran Dakar racer and champion Stéphane Peterhansel led the X-raid motorsports team in a Mini to take the overall win in the toughest rally in the world.
The Mini that won the title may look like a Mini Countryman SUV, but it is essentially a custom-built carbon-fiber racer with different engine, suspension—pretty much everything. The diesel engine is built by BMW Motoren in Austria and is based on a production BMW engine. The twin-turbo puts out over 315hp at just 4000 rpm. Top speed is 180 km/hour. A dry-sump system and even pared-down electrical wiring reduce overall weight.
The Mini All4 Racing uses carbon-fiber bodywork with 50mm steel-pipe roll cage partly adhered to the bodywork. The chassis was built for easy dismantling, apart from the enclosed passenger cell.
Here’s more from Mini:
Stéphane Peterhansel knows the Rally Dakar. He knows that the winner is not crowned until the final stage is really over. The route is too tricky and the competitors just too good to celebrate prematurely. That is why Stéphane did not accept any early congratulations on the eve of the rally’s final day – even though he held a lead of almost 43 minutes over his team-mate Nani Roma, who was second overall at that time.
Neither did he feel too confident about the fact that the next contender for the overall victory, Giniel de Villiers, was more than 1:15 hours behind him. “I still feel like I am in the race,” said Stéphane. ” There is still a 30-kilometre special to go and we could have a technical problem. I am still holding my breath. I will breathe again once I am on the podium.”
In the end the clock showed a total time of 38:44:56 hours. That is how long it took him to cover nearly 4,000 competetive kilometres from Mar del Plata in Argentina to Peru’s capital Lima.
It is also Stéphane’s tenth overall Dakar victory. The last time he won it all was in 2007. No other driver has more overall Dakar wins than Stéphane.
“When you think of how hard it is to win a Dakar, it’s incredible that I’ve been able to win ten of them. It’s been a long time, I’ve been waiting for five years to win again,” said the winner. “To take the victory in South America is a huge relief, it ranks among my best triumphs. Winning the rally for Team X-Raid makes it even more special, since Sven Quandt has been waiting for years for this to happen. I don’t know what I could do to go one better. Beating this record is going to be difficult – for the others!”
X-raid team manager Sven Quandt had entered five MINI ALL4 Racings at the Dakar. The fact that all five cars reached the finish shows the great reliability of the MINI ALL4 Racing as well as the quality of the X-raid team. The overall result is indeed an impressive one. All MINI ALL4 Racing drivers finished in the overall top ten.
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