BMW Confirms Biggest Dakar Lineup in Team History

BMW will do everything in its power to finally take the Dakar Rally crown off their German rivals Volkswagen in the cars category. And by that we mean the German manufacturer will line up its biggest entry in history for the 2011 event, due to be held on the South American continent starting in January 1st.

If until now only 4 X3CCs were confirmed for the 2011 Dakar Rally, the latest boost for BMW came from energy drink company Monster Energy, which recently confirmed the backing for 3 more racing crews. That leads to an overall seven X3CCs to be present on the entry list at the start of the January event.

“We are obviously delighted to announce Monster Energy as a key sponsor of the X-Raid team. We now have our largest ever Dakar team with seven cars. And we are confident that we strength in depth and experience across the team,” said the X-Raid BMW team principal Sven Quandt in a statement.

Once again, X-Raid's lineup will be headed by the most successful competitor in the history of the Dakar Rally, France's Stephane Peterhansel. After clinching 6 Dakar wins in the motorcycle category and 3 in a Mitsubishi car, he will now make a second attempt to clinch his maiden rally win at the wheel of a BMW.

He was close to succeed at his first attempt, last year, but a transmission problem caused him some serious time loss while in the lead early on. Eventually, he had to settle for 4th place overall. Joining Peterhansel in the Monster Energy backed lineup will be former privateer Ricardo Leal Dos Santos (best privateer of 2010 in the Dakar Rally, in 14th place) and former extreme skiing world champion Guerlain Chicherit.

Leonid Novitskiy, Krzysztof Holowczyc, Stephane Schott and Orlando Terranova are the other 4 names completing X-Raid BMW's lineup in the 2011 Dakar Rally.