Stéphane Peterhansel recounts the drama: “After the accident I lost consciousness.”
Stéphane Peterhansel recounts the drama: “After the accident I lost consciousness.”
On Friday during the sixth stage of the Dakar rally Stephane Peterhansel and his co-driver Edouard Boulanger had a violent accident. “I can only reconstruct some fragments of what happened because the truth is that in the impact of our car on the ground I lost consciousness. I have no memories from 5 minutes before the accident to 15 minutes after,” said Peterhansel.
“It was a fairly flat area so it was not easy to foresee such a steep dune,” he continued. “We made a leap of 8 or 10 meters and at the speed we come, I think 120-140 km/h, the car flies. And so it did. Another problem was that when I lost consciousness I had my foot on the accelerator so Edouard had to pull the handbrake and we turned 360 degrees. Physically I am tried, it was a crazy day.”
The Dakar Rally 2023 is the 45th edition of the Dakar Rally and will take place for the fourth time entirely in Saudi Arabia. The competition began on Dec. 31, 2022 at the Sea Camp near Yanbu and will end on Jan. 15 in Dammam after 14 stages.
