Yanbu, Saudi Arabia: Frenchman Mathieu Baumel hailed an “enormous triumph” as just a year after having his leg amputated he won the opening stage of the Dakar Rally alongside Belgian driver Guillaume De Mevius yesterday.
Navigator Baumel was back at the race just 11 months after his right lower leg was amputated after being run over while helping someone who had broken down on the road in France.
Last January it had looked as if life behind the wheel was in the past for the successful co-driver and navigator.
“Just being here is an enormous triumph,” said the 49-year-old, who got into his car on Sunday carrying his prosthetic limb.
Driving a mini the pair won the perilous 305km first stage at Yanbu, Saudi Arabia.
Baumel had previously won the Dakar Rally four times as co-pilot to Nasser Al-Attiyah, most recently back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023.
Yesterday, Qatar's Al-Attiyah in a Dacia was 40 second down in second with Czech Martin Prokop of Ford third at 1min 30sec.
De Mevius, sitting top of the heap at the finish line, admitted he was surprised.
“It wasn’t particularly the objective to win today, but we said to ourselves with Mathieu (Baumel) that we wanted to at least win one on the Dakar stages,” he said after a stoney and dusty ride.
Al-Attiyah had mixed feelings saying he “could have lost it all” on the challenging route and lamented that he had been ahead of the day’s winner for most of the stage.
Al Attiyah was content to play it safe and shadow the Belgian for much of the stage. He will line up behind De Mévius again tomorrow.
"We had a good pace and could have pushed harder, but when we saw Sébastien Loeb with two flat tyres, we decided to be cautious and avoid puncturing ourselves. When Guillaume de Mévius passed us, we stayed behind him and later chose to attack and move ahead. Finishing second is good. For tomorrow, it's also positive. Well start three minutes behind Guillaume and can push from there."
French driver Sebastien Loeb came 10th in his Dacia losing three minutes with a puncture after also leading the field.
Reigning Dakar champion Yazeed Al-Rajhi was the big loser of the day as the Saudi was slapped with a 16-minute penalty due to a missed crossing point.
In the motorcycle category, Spain’s Edgar Canet, already winner of the prologue, benefited after Botswana’s Ross Branch received a six-minute penalty for speeding in a restricted zone. Canet leads Australia’s Daniel Sanders by just over a minute. Today, the competitors will tackle a first big day of racing, heading towards Al Ula after more than 500km, 400 of which are individually timed.
