Grégoire de Mévius still has plenty of gas in his tank. The 62-year-old dominated the Merzouga 1000 Classic historic rally raid over the past week, sweeping the Pionniers class in his Range Rover Halt’up and winning the overall.

The father of rally raiders Guillaume and Ghislain de Mévius, the WRC and Paris–Dakar Rally alumnus completed the five-stage race with a total time of 18:28:17. Gilles Florin’s Hervé Cotel-prepped Porsche Buggy was second at 19:26:52, having lost some time on the final day to mechanical snags. Florin and de Mévius both swept their respective classes.

Philippe Delahaye’s Buggy BAT, a South African-built car that uses a 3.5-liter Nissan engine, rounded out the overall podium. The buggy also topped the Desert One class for cars built before 2010; de Mévius’ Range Rover fell under Classic for cars produced in the 1990s.

Yannick Panagiotis’ Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ100 drew first blood as the fastest car in Stage #1, beating Florin by 12:33. However, he lost the lead with a sixth the next day because of a mechanical.

Meanwhile, de Mévius had finished the first leg in third overall before placing second in Stage #2 behind Florin. The former would pull ahead in the second half of the rally.

Jaap Bolk’s Bolk Dakar Rally Team, a Dakar Classic regular whose leader traded in his Mitsubishi for a Fast & Speed, had a difficult race even before the start. Some of his crew got stuck at the port in Morocco because customs in Spain had neglected to stamp their passports. Once the matter was cleared, Bolk finished sixth in Stage #1 (third in Desert One) before suffering an engine failure 50 kilometers into the next day.

Fellow Dakar Classic outfit Nantes Prestige Autos began to experience trouble during the second stage as well. Julien Texier’s Range Rover broke down moments after crossing the finish, so teammate Axel Berrier towed him to a nearby gas station with his Porsche 964. Their other colleague, the Porsche 959 of Frédéric Larre, had his engine blow up during the day; the team had to replace the engine with a new one that has a different map, forcing him to miss Stage #3.

The fourth and penultimate stage proved to be a nightmare for NPA. Although Larre rejoined the race and reached he finish, he lost the clutch. Berrier’s 964 had the throttle get stuck coming to the finish, Texier was the next victim of engine problems. Despite the troubles, Berrier and Larre managed to bring their cars home third and fourth in Classic while Texier was runner-up in Pionniers.

Patrice Auzet, also a Dakar Classic starter, struggled with a plethora of mechanical gremlins. Speaking to Journal du 4×4 after Stage #4, he explained the issues ranged from losing a pivot ball joint to broken engine mounts. His Peugeot 504 even caught fire for a moment and got clogged by leaves after driving through tall grass.

Stage winners

Stage	Classic	Time	Pionniers	Time	Open	Time
Stage #1	Gilles Florin	4:24:47	Grégoire de Mévius	4:24:14	Yannick Panagiotis	4:04:05
Stage #2	Gilles Florin	2:30:43	Grégoire de Mévius	2:32:58	Philippe Delahaye	2:38:39
Stage #3	Gilles Florin	4:54:30	Grégoire de Mévius	4:12:05	Yannick Panagiotis	4:05:20
Stage #4	Gilles Florin	5:20:10	Grégoire de Mévius	5:04:20	Grégory Florin	5:52:22
Stage #5	Gilles Florin	2:16:42	Grégoire de Mévius	2:15:00	Grégory Florin	2:10:13

Top 10 results

Finish	Number	Driver	Navigator	Vehicle	Class	Group	Total Time
1	210	Grégoire de Mévius	André Leyh	Range Rover Halt’up	Pionniers	C3.4E	18:28:17
2	200	Gilles Florin	Paul Dagault	Porsche Buggy Cotel	Classic	C3.2E	19:26:52
3	204	Philippe Delahaye	Valérie Delahaye	Buggy Bat Racing	Open	Desert One	19:28:08
4	206	Yannick Panagiotis	Valérie Panagiotis	Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ100	Open	C1.4D	20:08:56
5	202	Grégory Florin	Christophe Bouvet	Fast & Speed Buggy V8	Open	Desert One	23:56:45
6	213	Julien Texier	Marine Athimon	Range Rover VSD	Pionniers	C3.4E	24:27:23
7	238	Eric Biehler	Frank Bonnet	Mitsubishi Pajero V6	Classic	C2.4E	28:34:17
8	121	Hervé Cotel	Philippe Patenotte	1981 Buggy Cotel	Pionniers	C3.2E	30:40:20
9	265	Axel Berrier	Jérémy Athimon	Porsche 964 DKR	Classic	C3.4E	31:23:24
10	186	Frédéric Larre	Alfonso Larre	Porsche 959 DKR	Pionniers	C3.4E	36:59:09

Entry list

Number	Driver	Navigator	Vehicle	Class	Group
121	Hervé Cotel	Philippe Patenotte	1981 Buggy Cotel	Pionniers	C3.2E
186	Frédéric Larre	Alfonso Larre	Porsche 959 DKR	Pionniers	C3.4E
200	Gilles Florin	Paul Dagault	Porsche Buggy Cotel	Classic	C3.2E
201	Patrice Auzet	François-Xavier Bourgeois	Peugeot 504	Pionniers	C2.E
202	Grégory Florin	Christophe Bouvet	Fast & Speed Buggy V8	Open	Desert One
204	Philippe Delahaye	Valérie Delahaye	Buggy Bat Racing	Open	Desert One
206	Yannick Panagiotis	Valérie Panagiotis	Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ100	Open	C1.4D
208	Jaap Bolk	Mark Laan	Fast & Speed Buggy V6	Open	Desert One
210	Grégoire de Mévius	André Leyh	Range Rover Halt’up	Pionniers	C3.4E
212	Mathias Richard	Laura Richard	Range Rover VSD	Pionniers	C3.4E
213	Julien Texier	Marine Athimon	Range Rover VSD	Pionniers	C3.4E
218	Ludovic Lepagnot	Amandine Quenoy	Audi Quattro S2	Classic	C3.4E
234	Patrick Kervorkian	Lucie Barbiza	Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ80	Raider	Raider
238	Eric Biehler	Frank Bonnet	Mitsubishi Pajero V6	Classic	C2.4E
240	Stephane Darbon	Marc Lalanne	Mitsubishi L200 HPE	Classic	C3.4D
242	Graziano Pelanconi	Vincent Cahut	Toyota Land Cruiser KDJ120	Raider	Raider
265	Axel Berrier	Jérémy Athimon	Porsche 964 DKR	Classic	C3.4E
300	Matthieu Patenere	Benois Szhumacher	Volkswagen T3	Pionniers	C3.4E
543	Christian Petit	Dominique Babando	SCORE Class 5	Pionniers	C3.2E

Featured image credit: Halt’up team