Vaporising the planet is not something we do every day, but every so often a spot of global warming seems like a good thing. Like when we have arranged a meeting of two larger than life legends: South Africa’s Dakar-conquering hero Giniel de Villiers, and Audi’s uber sports saloon, the RS6. At 36, with that recent win under his belt, Giniel is at the top of his game. The fuel-guzzling, twin-turbo V10 under the bonnet of the RS6 might just be at the pinnacle of large displacement petrol engines too. The last of the breed. Remember, the global economy has hooked reverse gear, R&D funds are being funnelled into hybrid technology, and emission controls have put big bangers into a stranglehold. No time like now, then.Parked in the pits at Killarney Race Track in Cape Town, however, it’s easy to forget that this is essentially a supercar dressed in lamb’s clothing. The  specs read like something from a Lamborghini catalogue. No, scratch that, because not even the Gallardo’s mighty V10 quite match the twin-turbo version crammed into the front of the Audi. Sure, 426kW of power is astounding, but it’s the 640Nm torque figure that reads like a misprint – especially if you consider that it is available all the way from 1500r/min to the red line at the far side of 6000.Even so, that torque figure is ‘quite a bit less than my Race Touareg, and it only has a 2.5 litre turbodiesel engine’ reckons Giniel. We’re all ears. He’s the man. Because to take part in the Dakar you eat rocks and do battle and get scars and dehydrate and you don’t sleep and you drive for twelve hours every day and you sweat a lot. And then, after two weeks of this, one man (or woman, if your name is Jutta Kleinschmidt) emerges victorious. You don’t win the Dakar Rally – you conquer it. If you’re lucky. If not, you eat dust just to make it to the finish.Great. We bring Dakar conqueror De Villiers to the track where he took part in his very first race so he can drive Audi’s hottest saloon yet, and he rains on our parade. Not intentionally, of course. See, the Robertson-born boy, now in his mid-thirties, is easily one of the most unassuming superstars you’ll ever meet. And he is a superstar. ‘Winning the Dakar is very different from coming second,’ says Giniel. He should know, since he came second in 2006. The gap between first and second may be a couple of inches on a podium, but in terms of your fame and future, it might as well be light-years. He came 5th, 7th and 4th in 2003, 2004 and 2005 respectively while driving the Nissan Hardbody prepared in South Africa by Glyn Hall and his team. Then came the switch to Volkswagen in 2006, and a second place, followed by his worst Dakar yet, in 2007. He was leading for a large chunk of the race, before his Race Touareg’s engine gave up the ghost. He finished 11th that year. Then, after the one-year gap due to terrorist threats in North Africa, he finally brought the magic of winning home to thousands of South Africans who sat, perched on the edge of their couches, from 10pm every night for weeks.Does he know just how much it meant to us at home? Does he know just how many people jumped up and pumped their fists and screamed: ‘Yeeeeessss! Go Gielie!’ when he romped to victory in Buenos Aires? ‘I know it’s meant a lot to a lot of people,’ he says. ‘My phone hasn’t stopped ringing since I crossed the finish line!’For a South African to win the Dakar is akin to what our swimming team did at the previous Olympics.