The 47th edition of the Dakar Rally that started on Friday, 3 January 2025 at Bisha in Saudi Arabia, has reached the halfway mark with the Rest Day on Friday, 10 January and after seven days, the prologue and five gruelling stages and more than 2 500 racing kilometres, the all South African Toyota Gazoo Racing crew of Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings are topping the overall leaderboard while they are also leading the Ultimate Class.
Lategan/Cummings, the current South African Rally-Raid Champions, who missed the 2024 event due to Lategan’s shoulder injury, started the 2025 Dakar Rally on a high note by winning the Prologue. They then continued to take the lead after the first half of Stage Two the 48 Hour Chrono where competitors had to complete a total of almost 960 kilometres over two days without assistance from service crews and having to overnight at remote campsites in the desert.
Two more solid results after taking the overall lead in the first half of the 48 Hour Chrono, and keeping their noses clean during the following three stages, including Stages 4 and 5 that made up the Marathon Stage where teams again had to service their own vehicles at a remote bivouac, and where punctures and a shortage of spare wheels played a major role in the results. On the Rest Day, Lategan/Cummings (TGR Hilux EVO) have a buffer of 10 minutes 17 seconds to second-placed Yazeed Al Rajhi/Timi Gottschalk who won Stage 4 in their Toyota Hilux.
The rest of the four South African TGR teams experienced a roller-coaster first week that included an entry in the record books for young Saood Variawa (19) who became the youngest driver to win a stage in the Ultimate Class. Variawa and his French navigator, Francois Cazalet, were also involved in an unfortunate collision with team-mates, Giniel de Villiers/Dirk von Zitzewitz in extremely dusty conditions that saw both teams losing time repairing their vehicles en-route to complete Stage Two, completed a mature performance to post the fastest time after Stage 3.
De Villiers, who won in 2009 and competing in his 22nd Dakar Rally, holds the record for 21 successive participations without a retirement. Together with his German navigator Von Zitzewitz, the pair and team-mates, Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy, have had their share of mechanical issues that resulted in the veterans being 16th in the Ultimate Class while Botterill/Murphy are 48th overall. Variawa/Cazalet are 34th in the standings.
Two more TGR teams, the Brazilian, Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon and the American, Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz, who clinched victories after the first and fifth stages, are currently fifth and ninth in the Ultimate Class making it a total of five Toyota Hilux vehicles in the top 10 of the Ultimate Class.
Another South African race vehicle manufacturer, Century Racing, had no less than 10 vehicles on the start-line with only one retirement so far – Laia Sanz/Gerini Maurizio who rolled their vehicle twice in Stage 1. Sanz, a former motorcycle rider, was forced to abandon the race for the first time in 15 starts.
Typical to the Dakar Rally, there were also obstacles for the teams with the best CR crew, the French team of Mathieu Serradori/Loic Minaudier seventh in the Ultimate Class while the South Africans, Brian Baragwanath/Leonard Cremer are currently 13th and within reach of the top 10.
Regular competitors in the SARRC, the Dutch duo of Rik van den Brink/Gydo Heimans are 40th in the Ultimate Class while the Zimbabwean, William Battershill together with KZN motorcycle competitor and Dakar Rally finisher in the Malle Moto ‘No Assistance’ Category, Stuart Gregory, are 46th after making it back to the bivouac for the Rest Day in the dark.
Like Battershill/Gregory, Mark Corbett and Juan Möhr can also write a book about their adventures at the 2025 event that include the team being towed back by their camper truck to reach the bivouac in the early hours of the morning after mechanical issues saw them stranded.
With two CR vehicles in the top 13 and nine of the 10 vehicles still in the race, the team is hopeful of a good result this year.
Another regular competitor on African soil, the German driver, Daniel Schröder who has teamed up with the South African navigator, Henry Köhne in their locally WCT-built VW Amarok, have made steady progress to find themselves 33rd overall in the Ultimate Class.
Four REVO T1+ cars built by the South African manufacturer, Red-Lined Motorsport, started the Dakar Rally, and are still giving it their all despite challenges and set-backs. The young lady driver from Dubai, Aliyah Koloc (20) has been impressive with navigator Sébastien Delaunay and is currently 36th in the Ultimate Class while the Dutch crew, Ronald Van Loon/Eric Lemmen are 28th. Two teams who are no strangers in South Africa, Stefan Carmans/Antonius van Tiel and the Klaassen couple, Dave and Tessa, are 47th and 51st respectively with their SA-built REVO T1+ vehicles in the Ultimate Class.
The first week of the Dakar Rally was extremely tough on competitors and their race vehicles with only 76% of the cars that started the event, still going. Some of the major names not on the results, include the defending champion and four times Dakar Rally winner, Carlos Sainz who was forced to withdrew after rolling his Ford Raptor in Stage 2 as well as Frenchman, Sebastian Loeb who rolled the Dacia Sandrider in Stage 3.
Loeb’s team-mates and five times Dakar Rally winner, Nasser Al-Attiyah/Edouard Boulanger are still going strong and even had a provisional stage victory – it would’ve been a first for new manufacturers, Dacia – had it not been for a rule infringement penalty on the fifth stage that dropped the Qatari to second place in the stage. The team are currently fourth overall in the Ultimate Class and trail Lategan/Cummings by 35 minutes while they are just under 15 minutes off the podium behind third-placed Mattias Ekström/Emil Bergkvist (Ford Raptor).
Two South African competitors also competing in the Challenger Class. Taye Perry, who previously navigated for Baragwanath on this event, sits next to American Corbin Leaverton with the team now eighth in the class after mechanical issues saw them dropping out of their podium position. The motorcycle rider and Malle Moto winner, Charan Moore, reads the notes for another regular competitor in the South African Rally-Raid series, Puck Klaassen with the team currently 10th in the class.
In the motorcycle category, four South African riders have taken on the 47th edition of the Dakar Rally with the Rally2 World Champion, Bradley Cox (KTM) currently 12th overall while Michael Docherty, who was the best rookie in 2023 when he finished 16th, in 15th place with Aaron Mare 30th and Willem Avenant 98th. The Botswana rider, Ross Branch, who is the current Rally GP World Champion, is currently 4th overall.
The Dakar Rally forms the first round of the 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship, and the excitement is mounting for the third round that will be hosted in South Africa, with the South African Safari Rally scheduled to take place from 18 to 24 May in the North-West and Limpopo Provinces. Competitors from around the world will be competing in the Ultimate, Challenger and SSV Classes as well as the Rally GP, Rally2, Rally3 and Quad Classes and spectators and enthusiasts will have front-row seats to experience this spectacle.
Just over 4 100 kilometres remain in the 2025 Dakar Rally that finishes on Friday, 17 January at Shubaytah.
Published by: SA Rally-Raid Championship
Photography Supplied by: Toyota Gazoo Racing
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