Biography Cyril Despres - GB

 Cyril Despres Biography Cyril Despres was born on 24 January 1974 in Fontainebleau, near Paris and grew up 15 kilometres away in Nemours. Although none of his family was interested in motorsport, family friends had a son who was a trials champion, Pascal Couturier, and Cyril quickly caught the bug. At 13 he bought a 80cc from a dealers in Paris, and with the twice world champion urging him on, Cyril competed for a dozen or so years. Encouraged by friends he entered a national level enduro and won first time out. In 2000 Cyril and his trials riding partner Michel Gau decided to enter the Dakar and financed their participation by selling bottles of wine with a map of the Dakar route on it. Cyril raced his first Dakar aboard a Honda XR400 and finished 16th overall and 2nd in his class. “About halfway into the race I started to get the measure of it and decided to try and move up the rankings.” Riding talent and race-­‐sense did rest and shortly after he took third on the Rallye de Tunisie. The same year Cyril also meet the person who was to become his ‘spiritual father’, Henri Magne, one of the great names of the Dakar, who had navigated for Pierre Lartigue and Jean-­‐Louis Schlesser. It was also the year that BMW recruited him into their factory team and for his first outing as a professional rider he finished the 2001 Dakar 12th overall and took his first stage victory. In enduro he finished what was widely regarded as the hardest race in the world, the Gilles Lalay Classic in 2nd place. In 2003 he won three Dakar specials and made it on to the second step on the podium and finished the year as World Rally-­‐Raid Champion. The best was yet to come. In January 2005 he won the Dakar aboard a KTM and dedicated his victory to the memory of his team mate Richard Sainct and Fabrizio Meoni. The following year didn’t go quite so well and he was beaten into second place on the Dakar by the Spaniard Marc Coma, but came back the following year to take his second Dakar, despite a first week complicated by a broken gearbox. In 2009 he won his second World Rally Raid Championship, the year that the Dakar imposed intake restrictors on bikes over 450cc. In 2010 KTM were reluctant to enter the Dakar officially. “I wanted to race and with the help of Red Bull and KTM we created our own team. It was a lot of work but finally, with the help of Michelin, my race went like a dream”. Cyril dominated from the third to the final day and won his third Dakar. He repeated the exploit in 2012 and 2013 to bring his Dakar tally up to five. On May 30 2013 Cyril announces the start of a new adventure – he joins the Yamaha Racing team for 2 years aboard a YZF450 Rally. On the programme: the Sardegna Rally Race, the Rally Dos Sertoes (Brazil), the Desafio Inca (Peru) and of course the 2014 Dakar Argentina-­‐Bolivia-­‐Chile. Race CV 2013 Winner of the Dakar Peru-­‐
Argentina-­‐Chile 2012 Winner of the Rallye du Maroc Winner of the Desafio Litoral Argentina Winner of the Dakar Argentina-­‐
Chile-­‐Peru 2011 Vainqueur du Rally Dos Sertoes (Brésil) Red Bull Los Andes – 2ème Erzberg Rodeo – 15ème KTM Mania – 4ème SardegnaRally Race – 2ème Dakar – 2ème 2011 Winner of the Rally Dos Sertoes, Brazil nd
Red Bull Los Andes – 2 th
Erzberg Rodeo – 15 th
KTM Mania – 4 nd
Sardegna Rally Race – 2 nd
Dakar – 2 2010 Winner of the Rallye OiLibya du Maroc Winner of the Dakar Argentina-­‐
Chile Winner of the Kenny Enduro rd
Sardegna Rally Race – 3 2009 Winner of the Red Bull Los Andes rd
Rallye du Maroc – 3 Winner of the Rallye des Pharaons rd
Red Bull Romaniacs – 3 Winner of the Sardegne Rally Race Winner of the Rallye de Tunisie nd
Rally UAE Desert Challenge – 2 nd
Dakar – 2 st
Le Touquet – 21 2008 nd
Dakar 2009 – 2 Winner of the UAE Rally Desert Challenge, Dubaï nd
Euromilhões Pax Rally -­‐ 2 nd
Baja Espagne – 2 nd
Rally Dos Sertoes – 2 Erzberg Red Bull Hare Scramble – th
4 Winner of the Sardegne Rally Race Central Europe Rally, Hungry and th
Romania – 5 th
"The Tough One", England – 6 th
Enduro Indoor de Gênes, Italy – 6 th
"Hell’s Gate", Italy – 7 th
Enduro Indoor Lyon, France – 6 2007 Winner of the Dakar Winner of the Red Bull Romaniacs – Romania nd
Baja 500 – 2 rd
Baja 1000 – 3 nd
Rallye Dos Sertoes, Brazil – 2 nd
UAE Desert Challenge, Dubaï – 2 Enduro Indoor de Lyon, France – nd
2 2006 nd
Euromilhoes Dakar – 2 – 4 stage wins Enduro du Touquet -­‐ Holeshot rd
ErzbergRodéo XII – 3 nd
Rallye Orpi Maroc – 2 Winner of the Rallye Dos Sertoes, Brazil nd
UAE Desert Challenge, Dubaï – 2 2005 Winner of the Dakar (Barcelone-­‐
Dakar) – 2 stage wins Enduro du Touquet -­‐ Holeshot Winner of the Rallye Optic 2000 Tunisie Winner of the Rallye d’Orient Winner of the Red Bull Romaniacs – Romania 2004 rd
Telephonica Dakar – 3 – 4 stage wins Enduro du Touquet -­‐ Holeshot Winner of the Rallye Optic 2000 Tunisie rd
Rallye Orpi Maroc – 3 nd
Baja Aragon , Spain – 2 Winner of the Red Bull Romaniacs – Romania 2003 nd
Telephonica Dakar – 2 – 3 stage wins Winner of the Trilogie at Mauriac and St Paul en Jarez nd
Rallye de Tunisie Optic 2000 – 2 Winner of the Erzberg Rodeo, Austria Winner of the Rallye Orpi Maroc Winner of the UAE Désert Challenge, Dubaï Winner of the Shark X-­‐Trem with M. Gau Rally-­‐Raid World Champion 2002 Winner of the Erzberg Rodeo, Austria Winner of the Rallye Por Las Pampas, Chile Winner of the l’En’Duo du Limousin with M.Gau Winner of the UAE Désert Challenge, Dubai 2001 th
Paris Dakar – 12 -­‐ 1 stage win nd
Gilles Lalay Classic – 2 World Enduro Champion (ISDE) with G.Porte and G.Algay Winner of the UAE Desert Challenge, Dubaï 2000 th
st
Paris Dakar Cairo – 16 – 1 participation Winner of the Rallye Orpi Maroc rd
Rallye de Tunisie Optic 2000 -­‐ 3 rd
UAE Desert Challenge, Dubaï 3 Cyril Despres on the net Official site http://www.cyrildespres.com/web/cyril/results Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cyril-­‐Despres/249628734044?ref=ts Twitter https://twitter.com/cyrildespres YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/DespresCyril