1st overall, Rally of Tunisia 1st overall, UAE Desert Challenge, all in a Mitsubishi Pajero* Evolution 2nd overall, Baja Italy, 1st in diesel category
2002
3rd overall, Dakar Rally 2nd overall, Baja Italy
2003
1st overall, UAE Desert Challenge, all in a Mitsubishi Pajero* Evolution
2004
1st overall, Dakar Rally 1st overall, Rally of Tunisia 1st overall Rally of Morocco 8th overall, UAE Desert Challenge, all in a Mitsubishi Pajero* Evolution
2005
2nd overall in the Patagonia-Atacama Rally 1st overall in the Dakar Rally 1st overall in the UAE Desert Challenge
2nd Central Europe Rally 5th Rally Transiberico 1st PAX Rally 1st Baja Portalegre
Biografía
Frenchman Jean-Paul Cottret was born in June 1963 and now lives with his wife Sandrine and his two children, Marine and Charlotte, near Auxerre, France. Between 1984 and 1992 he was actively involved in cross-country rallies as a member of various service crews, before making the switch to the co-driver’s seat.
He participated in the 1992 Rallye de Tunisie and finished ninth overall. He was ninth in Spain the following year and then took third on the 1994 Dakar Rally and clinched the T2 Cross-Country Rally World Cup title. Numerous top class results followed in events such as Tunisia, the Australian Safari, Morocco and Egypt and he was second overall with Stéphane Peterhansel on the 2000 Paris-Dakar-Cairo Rally.
The following season saw the pair win the T1 category, before joining the Mitsubishi team to take a series of outright wins in Tunisia, Dubai, Morocco and a maiden Dakar Rally triumph in January 2004. Cottret repeated his Dakar success with Peterhansel by winning the event for a second time in January 2005 and they were second together on the Patagonia-Atacama Rally. After disappointments in Morocco and Spain, the pair gave the revised MPR12 version of the Pajero* Evolution a successful shakedown with a crushing win on the 2005 UAE Desert Challenge and went on to finish fourth on the 2006 Dakar after leading for several days. Prior to working on the development of the new MPR13, the pair clinched victory on the Rallye de Tunisie and took part in the Rallye du Maroc.
In January 2007, he won the Dakar with Peterhansel for a third time before spearheading a Mitsubishi one-two on last summer’s Baja Espana and navigating Peterhansel to a fourth success in the United Arab Emirates.
This season the performances by the Peterhansel – Cottret pairing were once again brilliant. They finished in second position in a hard-fought Central Europe Rally, after that they went on to win the PAX Rally in Portugal and the Baja Portalegre. The latter being an important victory bearing in mind that the next race is the Dakar 2009, because this was the first official race for the Mitsubishi Racing Lancer with the new turbo-charged diesel enginel prepared by the Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart team and the car that will tackle the race in South-America.
