This month in history: Stéphane Peterhansel’s four overall victories at Rally Dakar

Only one person is missing and yet the world feels deserted. This is undoubtedly how many competitors at the 2025 Dakar Rally are feeling, as this year’s race gets underway in Saudi Arabia without Stéphane Peterhansel for the first time since 1994. “Monsieur Dakar”, as he is widely known, as much for his 35 appearances as his incredible 14 wins (eight in a car, six on a motorbike), has decided to take a break from the race, at least for this year. A perfect opportunity for us to look back on the four overall wins he secured driving cars backed by TotalEnergies.

The first of these came in 2012 with the Mini X-Raid, followed a year later by a second victory in 2013. Stéphane’s final race with Mini came in 2014, after which he joined Peugeot Sport, aiming to bring the famous French marque success again at the world’s most iconic cross-country rally, some twenty-five years after Ari Vatanen’s final win in the 405 Turbo 16 (1990). After spending 2015 learning about the car in race conditions, Peterhansel claimed Peugeot’s first win of the modern era in the 2008 DKR, sporting Total decals, in 2016. Peterhansel struck the telling blow on stage ten, widely regarded as the most daunting test in 2016, leaving all his rivals in his wake as he tackled the formidable Fiambalá dunes in Argentina. “We’re really pleased. Before the start, I had the feeling that the team still lacked a little maturity and that we might be short on reliability and performance. We only had two years’ experience. In actual fact, it went very smoothly indeed,” commented Peterhansel a few minutes after getting out of the car. He won the race again a year later, this time in the 3008 DKR, adding another victory to his record with Total (now TotalEnergies).