Dakar and Yamaha

Yamaha is the most victorious motorcycle manufacturer in the Dakar Rally with nine overall victories and has been involved in the rally from the very beginning.

At the tender age of 21 Cyril Neveu won the first event on the iconic XT500, a feat he repeated in the following year.

The Dakar’s most successful competitor, Stephan Peterhansel, made the biggest contribution to Yamaha’s victory tally with five wins in 1992, ’93, ’93, ’95, ’97 and ’98.

After Peterhansel’s last win Yamaha withdrew officially from the rally to return to the event five years later putting their latest groundbreaking technology to the ultimate endurance test.

Back then Dakar rookie David Frétigné caused a stir by winning three stages as he challenged the big capacity twin cylinder bikes on his revolutionary WR450F 2-Trac mono cylinder, the first off-road competition motorcycle to have two-wheel drive. ‘Fretos’ convincingly won the 450 class in 2004 and 2005, but on the many long ‘flat-out’ desert stretches the lower top speed of a 450 single cylinder prevents it to fight for the overall victory, yet Frétigné managed to finish fifth overall in 2005.

For this year’s edition Frétigné (#12) is again one of Yamaha’s favourites, although he saw his participation endangered when his new Spanish team failed to put together a competitive team.

With two months to go, Yamaha and other loyal sponsors came to David’s aid enabling him to organize his own set up.

With the support of long term technical partner Franck Helbert, Frétigné is confident to score a career best result.

He said: “On paper, one can’t win with a 450, but I still aim for podium finishes. With the imposed top speed of 160 km/h for bikes on some of the very fast stretches, two stages where no technical assistance is allowed and the 450cc bonus points system, we can challenge the factory teams with the bigger bikes.

“If we are smart in terms of management and race strategy we might be able to close the performance gap completely.”

Fifty-seven of the Dakar motorcycle entries will be equipped with WR450F machines in either 2-trac or rear wheel drive specification.