Dakar Rally Racing Legend Hubert Auriol Has Died Aged 68

DAKAR Rally racing legend Hubert Auriol has sadly died aged 68 on Sunday, January 10 “from a cardiovascular accident following a long battle against the disease,” according to his family.

The world of motor racing is in mourning after learning the news that Hubert Auriol, a legendary car and motorbike driver and former director of the Paris-Dakar rally, died today.

Nicknamed “the African”, not only because he was born in 1952 in Ethiopia but also because of his success on the tracks of the famous rally-raid, he was the first to win the race both in motorbike (1981 and 1983) and by car (1992).

In 1995, he became the new boss of the Dakar Rally, a position he held until 2004. It was under his direction that the rally-raid would set off for the first time outside France, from Spain (Granada in 1995, 1996 and 1999) and even from Dakar (1997 and 2000).

His face will be even more familiar to the French public after he became the first presenter of the reality show “Koh-Lanta” on TF 1 in 2001 before Denis Brogniart succeeded him.

Hubert Auriol also holds the record of the being one the fastest people, along with Henri Pescarolo, Patrick Fourtick and Arthur Powell, to circumnavigate the world in a propeller plane, in 1987 – shortly after his terrible motorbike accident, where he broke both his ankles – in a flight that took a little over 88 hours.