2003 Dakar Rally
Pos No Driver Co-Driver Car Entrant Time
1 200 Hiroshi Masuoka Andreas Schulz Mitsubishi Team ENEOS Mitsubishi Ralliart 49:08:52
2 202 Jean-Pierre Fontenay Gilles Picard Mitsubishi Team ENEOS Mitsubishi Ralliart +1:52:12
3 206 Stéphane Peterhansel Jean-Paul Cottret Mitsubishi Team ATS Mitsubishi Ralliart +2:16:28
4 211 Carlos Sousa Henri Magne Mitsubishi Mitsubishi Ralliart +2:27:47
5 217 Giniel de Villiers Pascal Maimon Nissan Nissan Rally Raid Team +2:45:55
6 215 Stéphane Henrard Bobby Willis Volkswagen Volkswagen Motorsport +3:42:15
7 204 Ari Vatanen Tina Thörner Nissan Nissan Rally Raid Team +4:25:59
8 203 Jutta Kleinschmidt Fabrizia Pons Volkswagen Volkswagen Motorsport +8:16:56
9 221 Luc Alphand Matthew Stevenson BMW Team X-Raid +8:56:06
10 224 José Luis Monterde Rafael Tornabell Mitsubishi Ralliart +9:08:19
Final standings -- Cars
The 2003 Dakar Rally, also known as the 2003 Telefónica-Dakar Rally, was the 25th running of the Dakar Rally event. The rally began on 1 January 2003 at Marseille in France and finished at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt on 19 January, with the course crossing North Africa. Kenjiro Shinozuka, who won the event in 1997, suffered serious injury in an accident between Ghat and Sabha in Libya. Former world rally champion and four times winner of the Dakar Rally, Ari Vatanen, returned to take part in the rally, and won the ninth, thirteen and fifteen stages French co-driver, Bruno Cauvy died in an accident on the tenth stage when his car went out of control and overturned in sand dunes. Stephane Peterhansel took an early lead in the rally, but was forced out in the penultimate stage by mechanical problems. The rally was won for the second time in succession by Japanese driver, Hiroshi Masuoka. The motorcycle category was won for the third time by Richard Sainct.