Frenchmen Stephane Peterhansel and Cyril Despres successfully defended their Dakar Rally car and motorbike titles yesterday.

Peterhansel, leading the race since the second stage on January 6, became the most successful driver in the world’s toughest rally with his fifth victory in cars to go along with a record six on a motorbike. He dedicated his win to Jean-Claude Olivier, the team manager during his motorbike victories who died in a traffic accident in France the previous weekend.

Peterhansel is the first person to win the car category twice since the rally moved from Africa to South America in 2009 for security reasons.

With a commanding overall lead, his Mini finished about four minutes behind teammate Nani Roma, the winner of the fast, rainy 14th stage into Santiago.

Overall, Peterhansel beat 2009 winner Giniel de Villiers of South Africa by 42 minutes, and another teammate, third-place Leonid Novitskiy of Russia, by nearly 90. The favoured X-raid team spearheaded by Peterhansel had four cars in the top five.

Roma, last year’s runner-up, was fourth, and Orlando Terranova of Argentina was fifth.

“A race is never won from the beginning. The team did a cracking job,” Peterhansel said after his 25th Dakar. “We never stopped, we never had a mechanical. We only had to drive as fast as we could.

“On the other hand, my co-driver Jean-Paul [Cottret] did an amazing job navigating. We never had to ease up. We always maintained a high pace, apart from the last couple of days, when we started dosing our efforts. This is the first time since I started racing in cars that we’ve finished a race without a single mechanical problem. This is the best car I’ve ever driven.”

Despres’ fifth title on a KTM tied him in rally history with the inaugural Dakar winner, countryman Cyril Neveu. They are second only to Peterhansel in bike titles.

Despres was favoured for the win after his great rival in recent years, three-time champ Marc Coma of Spain, did not enter because of an injured shoulder. Despres was penalised for changing engines mid-race but regained the lead last Wednesday and held on.

He was 17th yesterday, four minutes behind stage winner Ruben Faria of Portugal.

Overall, Despres was 10:43 ahead of teammate Faria, and 18:48 ahead of Chile’s Francisco Lopez. The Frenchman was eloquent in explaining the gruelling challenges of the Dakar.

“I went for it with all the surprises a Dakar can throw at you,” Despres said. “In the end, I’ve got a good reason to be very happy. The day when winning the Dakar becomes easy, it won’t be interesting any more.

“It’s too long, it’s too tough, it’s too hot, it’s too cold. It’s just too tricky for it to be easy to win.”

The rally began on January 5 in the Peruvian capital of Lima and wound its way south through the deserts and mountains of Peru, Argentina and Chile.