Olivier Pernaut, son of Jean-Pierre Pernaut, is taking the start of the Dakar Rally for the first time, this Friday January 3 in Saudi Arabia. Aged 43, he has nearly twenty years of competition in GT, Fun Cup and other disciplines under his belt. He also shared nine seasons of the Andros Trophy with his father, an emblematic figure of the small screen, which reinforced his passion for motorsport.
“It’s a race that I watched when I was a child on television with my father, and I dreamed of one day participating in it,” the driver, whose navigator is Benjamin Rivière, 46, told the Dakar organizers. . Died in 2022, the presenter of 1 p.m. on TF1 will unfortunately not have had time to see this.
“I remember telling him: ‘When I grow up and have my license, I’d like us to do it together!’ To which he replied: ‘Oh my, I’ll be too old!’ », Confided to “France Dimanche” Olivier Pernaut, who adds to having “a mixture of excitement and the unknown” before the race.
Olivier is the son that Jean-Pierre Pernaut had with his ex-wife, Dominique Bonnet. He has a sister, Julia (45 years old). In the family, the passion for motorsport is widespread: Olivier’s paternal grandfather was a racing commissioner and founding member of the ASAP (Association sportive automobile de Picardie) and his uncle was a doctor and rally driver.
This year, the Dakar presents a “robust” route. To arrive on January 17 at Shubaytah, on the border with the United Arab Emirates, the pilots will have to swallow 8,000 kilometers of sand in the Saudi Arabian desert.
