Peugeot aiming to 'shock and awe' with 2015 Dakar Rally line-up

The BMW-Mini X-raid team sent out a press release yesterday that stated 11-time Dakar Rally champion - six times on a motorcycle, five times in a car - was ending his five year association with them.

Reading just that would have created the impression that the 48-year-old Frenchman was calling time on his involvement with cross country rallying's highest profile event where he made his debut in 1988.

However the reality was that Peterhansel was completing Peugeot's heavy-hitting line up of drivers for its return to the Dakar Rally in 2015.

TRIPLE THREAT

Peterhansel will join five-time motorcycle winner Cyril Despres as well as rally legend Carlos Sainz who has the 2010 Dakar Rally crown and the 2007 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup to his list of achievements along with the 1990 and 1992 World Rally Championship (WRC) titles. With 26 WRC wins and 97 podiums to boot.

This is the line-up that has been entrusted with helping to develop and then piloting Peugeot's Dakar Rally-spec 2008 DKR.

It begs the question as to how much of the blame Peugeot are willing to accept in the event of failing to win the Dakar Rally on its return. It is a valid speculation given the firepower that the French company has acquired to sit in the driver's seat of its new cross-country rally steed.

WHO TAKES THE FALL?

The situation sounds similar to that at Ferrari in Formula 1 at the moment who have the services of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen. It's hard to point the finger at the two former world champions - especially Alonso - but easier to direct scrutiny towards Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo, who has not exactly been doing a very good job of handling it.

So let's see if the competition for Peugeot as stiff as what Ferrari is up against in F1.

TAKING ON ALL COMERS

Nasser Al-Attiyah - winner of the 2011 Dakar Rally with Volkswagen - finished second with the X-raid Mini at this year's event and is now in the position of having the resources of the team all to himself. And those resources aren't exactly paltry. The ties to BMW are strong with X-raid and there is money from energy drinks sponsor Monster Energy.

Citroen hope to counter that with backing from the prominent name in energy drinks; Red Bull, whose annual revenues hover around the 4 billion euro figure.

Toyota and South Africa's Giniel de Villiers - winner for VW in 2009 - have been knocking on the door of a Dakar Rally win for the last couple of editions but the Dakar-spec Hilux has so far proved to be more solid than outright fast as compared to the prototype-ish Minis.

The wild card amidst all this are the Baja 1000 SCORE derived trucks that look and sound spectacular but have tested the patience of both Sainz and Al-Attiyah.

All in all, not exactly easy to reach a cut and dried conclusion of Citroen scoring a fairy tale win on its return. It certainly did not play out like that for Porsche at Le Mans this year, did it?