Stephane Peterhansel has sealed his 11th Dakar victory at the 2013 edition of the event after a composed and consistent drive all the way through the last stage.
Peterhansel fended off pressure from the faster Red Bull Buggys of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Carlos Sainz; but the Frenchman emerged as the obvious win contender when both of his rivals were forced to retire.
The Dakar legend ultimately finished 42 minutes ahead of Giniel de Villiers‘ Toyota, with X-raid vehicles filling out four of the top five positions as Leonid Novitskiy and Nani Roma came in third and fourth.
Orlando Terranova brought home his X-raid BMW to a fifth place finish after crossing the line just 13 seconds behind Roma on the fourteenth and final stage.
Robby Gordon eventually settled for a 14th place finish; the American lost all hopes of a win when he rolled his Hummer into a stop on the fourth stage of the event, which dropped him to 43rd overall.
In the bikes category, Cyril Despres won his fifth Dakar Rally motorcycling title on a KTM; he ended the rally 10 minutes 43 seconds ahead of second-placed Ruben Faria.