Peterhansel admits nerves

The 41-year-old Frenchman, who won the event for the third time on four wheels and the ninth time in total, took the lead on stage ten and never surrendered his advantage.

But he was forced to look behind him on numerous occasions as his Mitsubishi team-mate Luc Alphand closed in on him during the final few days.

And, after receiving the winner's trophy from race organiser Etienne Lavigne, he said that he was forced to take it easy on the final 16km stage around the Senegalese capital, for his own sake.

Peterhansel said: "I was nervous yesterday on the last African special gross and I simply controlled slowly on the beach this morning.

"It was not necessary to make the spectacle for crowd and television for the special last."

What made Peterhansel's victory all the more remarkable was that he – and Mitsubishi - did it without winning a single one of the 15 special stages.

That equalled the achievement of another Frenchman Claude Marreau – the 1982 winner, and 2001 victor Jutta Kleinschmidt, from Germany.

Peterhansel added: "When I won my first rally raid, in Tunisia, I did not win any of the stages.

"So it was not a problem in my head not to win any stages on this Dakar. The final victory is the important thing. It is the best feeling."

The Frenchman's victory was the seventh in a row for Mitsubishi and the Japanese manufacturer's 12th on the event's history.