“It’s also for everyone who followed me that I’m disappointed!” After his fall in the Dakar during the second stage, Comtois biker Mathieu Feuvrier tells us about his discovery of an extraordinary rally.

It was a lifelong dream. Take part in the biggest rally raid event in the world. The 31-year-old driver, from Méroux-Moval, had a terrible first experience this week on the Dakar, in Saudi Arabia, falling heavily during the 2nd stage.

Tuesday January 7, 10:30 a.m. French time. It is on the highway, near the Plateau de Langre. In an ambulance that rolls to take him home, where his partner is waiting for him. Mathieu Feuvrier is kind enough to take the time to answer us on the phone. Unless it makes him feel better to talk about it. There is sadness in his voice. Fatigue too. And relief, because it could have been worse.

His Dakar stopped in the middle of the dunes, motorcycle intact but broken collarbone. “I triggered my beacon. Five minutes later, the ASO helicopter (rally raid organizer) picked me up to take me to the bivouac to take radios. It could have been worse, I got through it pretty well well even if I am extremely disappointed I have more than 250 messages on my phone, it is also for all these people that I am disappointed.explains the biker from Méroux-Moval, member of the Nomade Racing team.

Saudi Arabia is over. Already. After only three days of racing. For three years his whole life had been organized around this event. Participating in the Dakar, the race that thrilled him as a child, required a large financial investment for Mathieu, to the tune of 120,000 euros. This project manager in a design office in the industry launched in 2022, after his first Rally of Morocco.

Since then, with more than an hour of sport per day and thousands of hours of riding on his KTM, he only thought of these two weeks in January. But the driver explains to us that there is a huge gap between a Rally of Morocco and the star of rally raids in terms of difficulty. The second stage, lasting 48 hours, was feared by the pilots.

My goal was not to fall, I had prevented myself from falling. This start of the stage was going well, I had overtaken the competitors, there were some nice dunes, no real risks and then came a different dune, with a precipice of almost 20 meters. I braked too late and landed 5 meters below, I ran over the motorbike which landed on my shoulder.

The Comtois pilot finds the strength to raise his Husqvarna 450 rally replica. He gets back on the bike and another 50 km in the dunes. But on a jump he takes a big compression and feels his collarbone go down and a terrible pain radiates. He then understands that it is broken. That it’s over.

At 31 years old, Mathieu Feuvrier does not yet know if he will attempt the Dakar again. It’s way too early, it’s still way too sad. But the idea is not to throw everything into this story. The first days passed like a dream, the Comtois finding himself on magnificent tracks, participating in this monument of motor sport which thrilled him as a kid. “If I’m sad, it’s also for those close to me, for my team, for all those people who followed me. I almost consider myself a little lucky, it’s just my collarbone. I’m going to take the time to digest all that, to return to work, in real life And then, afterwards, we will see.”