Ari Vatanen/Fabrizia Pons doing DAKAR. Trust is everything.

From this article

"For Vatanen, the importance of making fewer mistakes than the opposition is the key to success in the Dakar. With his 20 years of experience, Ari knows that no team or driver will be entirely incident-free over the 16-day, 9,000km event, so it is the degrees of error that will make the difference between first and second. For this reason Dakar is unique in the importance of the co-driver's role.

The rest is Dakar In '07, Italian Fabrizia Pons will take the seat next to Ari and he does not underestimate how vital her role is. "It's essential to have someone next to me who I can trust because otherwise you know that you are only fighting for third or fourth place. Co-driving in Dakar is more important than in any other event. Even a top co-driver will get lost a couple of times in a rally but the difference is will you lose two minutes or 15 minutes."

How indispensible are co-drivers? And let's remember Vatanen is 54 years old! These guys (and gals) are awesome!