Mitsubishi Motors Corporation and Ralliart Inc have combined forces again this year to produce one of the most experienced and talented combinations of cars and drivers to contest the famous Paris-Dakar Rally, which starts on January 1, 2001.

Six highly experienced drivers have been put together with the finest Mitsubishi cars to create a powerful challenge for victory on the 2001 Dakar. They include Japanese ace and former Dakar winner Kenjiro Shinozuka, co-driven by Ulsterman Fred Gallagher in the Team Nisseki Mitsubishi Ralliart Pajero/Montero, and another experienced and successful Japanese star, Hiroshi Masuoka, co-driven this time by French navigator Pascal Maimon, also in a team Nisseki Mitsubishi Ralliart Pajero. And driving the Team Hewlett-Packard Ralliart Pajero/Montero will be the ever-popular French duo Jean-Pierre Fontenay and Gilles Picard. All three are capable of victory on this famous and gruelling event.

Shinozuka could well be favourite again on the Dakar after a fabulous comeback earlier this year after recovering from his unfortunate accident on the Paris-Cairo event in 2000. On his first event back in the driver's seat, Shinozuka stormed to an impressive victory in September's Por Las Pampas Rally in Argentina. He went on to finish in an impressive third place on the final round of the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies - the Marlboro UAE Desert Challenge, held in November.

Fontenay has also had a good season, which has provided excellent preparation for the forthcoming Dakar. He finished third overall on the Rally of Morocco in June of this year and was an excellent fourth on the UAE Desert Challenge, despite stopping to help fellow Mitsubishi Driver Jutta Kleinschmidt who crashed at one point.

Kleinschmidt, arguably the world's fastest lady off-road driver, is also entered into the Dakar 2001 in a Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero supported by Mitsubishi's German distributor team. Most recently, Kleinschmidt survived a spectacular roll on the UAE desert Challenge to finish sixth, which was enough to land her second overall in the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies. On last year's Dakar, Kleinschmidt was an impressive fifth overall and she went on to finish second in Tunisia, fourth in Morocco, second on the Spanish Baja, second on the Masters Rally, and second on the Por Las Pampas. Being the only woman driver to have ever led the Dakar 1997 and having finished third overall in 1998, she will be a driver to watch in 2001.

Masuoka too is in impressive form. The Japanese driver was part of the team that lifted the International short wheelbase 4x4 (Class 3) category award in the recent Tecate SCORE Baja 2000, one of America's most famous motorsports events. Masuoka was partnered by John Holmes, Scot Jones and Ryan Thomas in a Mitsubishi, completing the 1,700 mile course in an incredible 55 hours and 36 seconds.

Spanish driver Miguel Prieto will also be another to watch in his Mitsubishi. Wins on the 1986 Tunisia Rally and the 1987 Pharaohs pointed to early potential, and this was confirmed with a second in the class for standard cars on the Dakar in 1996 with a Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero followed by a class win the following year. His best result so far was a spectacular second place overall on the 1999 event.

The Portuguese Mitsubishi distributor has also placed an entry for the experience Carlos Sousa in a Mitsubishi Strakar T3. Like Prieto, Sousa has a long history of success, especially in his home country of Portugal where National cross country rallies are very popular. When he started driving a Mitsubishi in 1995, he began amassing local trophies before moving into the International arena with a standard car class win on the 1997 Dakar, before his best result was scored while beating the experienced Jean-Louis Schlesser on the Baja Portugal in 1999, celebrating his first World Championship Rally victory on home soil.

Three Brazilian teams will join this year's event driving a Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero; Team BR Lubrax under the experienced team of Kolberg/Cattarelli will challenge the gruelling event in T2. In the T3 category, Tibau Team with driver Fadigatti / co-driver Marzaliovk, and behind the wheel of the Brasil Desert Club entry, driver C. Clauset and co-driver J. Neickle. There is considerable anticipation in their home country regarding their entry in to this legendary event and expectation is running high.

The Dakar will start this year on the Champ-de-mars before heading south through France, Spain and onto Morocco. After four days in Morocco, the event heads into the Western Sahara and through the sandy wilderness of Mauritania, before moving into Mali and then to Senegal and onto the Capital Dakar for the finish. The event lasts for 21 days and covers a total of 6,180 km competitively and another 4,559 km of liaison sections making it one of the longest rallies in the world. There are three legs in Europe, four in Morocco, eight in Mauritania, two in Mali, and finally three in Senegal.

Again Mitsubishi cars are proving a popular choice for the Dakar 2001, with 22 entries from Mitsubishi drivers in the car class at the time of writing, from a total car entry of 117.