CO-DRIVER

Frenchman Gilles Picard was born in France in March 1955. He first began competing in motorcycle Enduro events back in 1973 and took part in numerous rallies on a motorcycle between 1973 and 1992 as a factory rider with Husqvarna, Cagiva and Yamaha. He then made the switch to co-driving and partnered both Hubert Auriol and Ari Vatanen in the factory Citroën team. Gilles joined Mitsubishi and began a successful association with the French driver Jean-Pierre Fontenay. The pair won the UAE Desert Challenge in 1998 and took a maiden Dakar triumph together the same year.

In 2000, they finished third on the Dakar, Morocco and Por Las Pampas rallies and fourth in Dubai. Podium places followed on the 2002 Italian Baja (third, with Kenjiro Shinozuka) and UAE Desert Challenge (2nd, with Fontenay) before he and Fontenay rounded off their partnership with second place on the 2003 Dakar.

When Fontenay retired from active competition after that event, Gilles teamed up with Hiroshi Masuoka to take outright victory on the 2003 Italian Baja and the pair then came second together on the 2004 Dakar.

For 2005, Gilles teamed up with Luc Alphand and scored his third consecutive runner-up finish with as many drivers on the Dakar. The pair went on to win April's Rallye de Tunisie, then the Baja Portalegre in Portugal the following October.

In 2006, he navigated the former skiing champion to an outright win on the Dakar. It was his second success on the African marathon after his victory with Fontenay eight years previously. The same year saw him navigate Alphand to victory on the Patagonia-Atacama Rally in March 2006 and to third place on the Rally Transiberico two months later. Their season concluded with another win, this time on November's UAE Desert Challenge. Still alongside Alphand, Gilles was second once again on the 2007 Dakar Rally and was fourth on the Rally Transiberico Rally before taking the laurels on the Por Las Pampas/Patagonia-Atacama Rally during the summer.