Joan “Nani” Roma in the yellow Mini All4 Racing has won the 2014 Dakar Rally, with the car class dominated by the Monster Energy X-raid Mini team, which took 1st, 2nd and 3rd place and had seven cars finishing in the top 10. It is Mini’s third straight win at the Dakar since the carmaker’s debut in 2011. The BMW-owned carmaker entered 11 cars at this year’s event and all of them crossed the finish line.
Roma’s first Dakar victory in a car came exactly 10 years after winning the motorcycle category on a KTM. The Spaniard narrowly beat teammate Stéphane Peterhansel, with only 5:32 minutes separating the two drivers in the overall standings. Nasser Al-Attiyah took third place, with the other four Mini drivers ranked in the top 10 being Orlando Terranova (5th), Krzysztof Holowczyc (6th), Martin Kaczmarski (9th) and Vladimir Vasilyev (10th).
“I’m so relieved and happy. It was my big goal to win the Dakar not only on a motorbike but also in a car. A dream came true for me and I want to thank everybody at X-raid and Mini for their great work!” said Roma.
Roma has been leading the overall classification at the 2014 Dakar Rally for nine days, winning two stages in total, while Mini cars won 11 of the 13 stages.
The motorcycle category was won by Spaniard Marc Coma on a KTM, while the truck class was won by Russian Andrey Karginov from the Kamaz-Master team.
This year’s edition was one of the toughest of all time, with the 9,374 km (5,825 mile) long route leading from Rosario, Argentina across the Andes and the Atacama desert to Valparaiso, Chile at the Pacific coast.
By Dan Mihalascu
PHOTO GALLERY
