Summary (2004 - Clermont - Ferrand)

Mitsubishi driver Stephane Peterhansel won the Dakar 2004 with a lead of almost an hour over his teammate and previous year's winner Hiroshi Masuoka. "For the first victory on the motorcycle I had to wait four years, for the first in the car six. But in the end you cannot compare the two", explained Peterhansel, who had already been within reach of victory the previous year, but was caught by bad luck on the penultimate stage and dropped back to third place. "That was a hard rally. There were an incredible number of places where you could make mistakes. But we made it. A big thank you to my co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret, who worked perfectly. I congratulate him on his first Dakar victory. Last year we had to take some setbacks. But now all is forgotten." From the ninth day on, the two Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution continuously maintained a commanding one-two lead and steadily extended the gap to their pursuers. In the final reckoning, Jean-Louis Schlesser (Schlesser-Ford), third overall, was a clear three hours behind winner Peterhansel. Not only Schlesser, himself a two-time Dakar winner, was impressed by the performance of the Mitsubishi works team. "The extraterrestrials" was what the Frenchman respectfully called the 270-hp high-tech four-wheel-drive cars from Mitsubishi.

Final standings

Pos.	No.	Driver	Manufacturer	Overall time
1		Peterhansel	Mitsubishi Pajero	53.47.37
2		Masuoka	Mitsubishi Pajero	+ 00.49.24
3		Schlesser	Schlesser-Ford-Raid	+ 03.00.33
4		Alphand	BMX X5	+ 03.55.58
5		Mayer	Mitsubishi Pajero	+ 05.46.17
6		Saby	Volkswagen Touareg	+ 06.54.03
7		de Villiers	Nissan Puck Up	+ 08.06.11
8		de Mevius	BMW X5	+ 09.34.45
9		Magnaldi	Buggy Honda	+ 10.00.36
10		Al-Attiyah	Mitsubishi Pajero	+ 10.01.28