DAKAR, Senegal -- Plowing a trail through two continents and five countries, French driver Stephane Peterhansel won his second straight Dakar Rally title in the car category Sunday, adding to his six victories in the motorcycle race.
Overall results at the finish just outside Senegal's capital put the Mitsubishi driver's time at 52 hours, 31 minutes and 39 seconds.
Fellow Frenchman and former champion downhill skier Luc Alphand, also in a Mitsubishi, finished second overall, 27:14 behind. Germany's Jutta Kleinschmidt was in third, 3:22:00 behind Peterhansel.
"This second victory is a confirmation of my new status as a car driver," Peterhansel said, smiling widely as he emerged from his vehicle covered in dust.
In the motorbike event, overall victory went to KTM rider Cyril Despres of France, whose final time was 47:27:31. Marc Coma of Spain, also on a KTM, was second, 9:45 back.
Russia's Firdaus Kabirov won in the truck category in 71:13:55. His nearest competitor, Japan's Katsumi Hamura, was 6:04:19 behind.
The 27th edition of the race kicked off New Year's Eve in Barcelona, Spain and covered 5,566 miles, including 3,375 miles of 16 special stages.
Snaking through Spain, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali and Senegal, the two-week rally ended Sunday with a 23-mile stage that ran from West Africa's Atlantic Ocean beaches to Lac Rose, a pink lake just east of Dakar that takes its unique color from a type of algae.
France's Bruno Saby won the car category's final stage Sunday in 19 minutes, with fellow Frenchman Thierry Magnaldi 20 seconds behind. Peterhansel finished the last leg in 11th place, 3:09 behind Saby.
The punishing race, featuring vast stretches of open desert, steep dunes, oak forests and rocky mountain passes, has a reputation for ruthlessness.
Some 465 cars, trucks and motorcycles started this year, but by Sunday, only 216 were still in the rally, the rest having broken down or crashed.
Before Sunday's final stage began, race organizers held a minute of silence for the two fatalities recorded this year: Spanish motorcyclist Jose Manuel Perez and Italian motorcyclist Fabrizio Meoni, a two-time winner who had said this Dakar Rally would be his last.
Depres shed tears after crossing the finish line out of sadness at Meoni's death.
