The best rally-raid teams in the world balanced speed and strategy during the first timed section of the South African Safari Rally, brought to you by Toyota Gazoo Racing.
After a successful weekend of testing for Round 3 of the 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) at Sun City, 95 cars, 37 bikes and four quads were ready for South Africa’s most important motorsport event in over three decades. Combining elements of the demanding terrain South African Safari Rally competitors will face this week, the short but action-packed 9 km prologue was typical North West off-road racing terrain. High-speed twin bush tracks, framed by trees, were intertwined with a short section of forest to focus riders, drivers, and navigators on precision.
The top riders and teams on the prologue timesheets get to draw their road positions for Stage 1 – and very few competitors want to be first. Estimating how much dust can influence visibility versus how much surface grip improves, with rivals sweeping and compacting the route ahead, makes a prologue top-10 finish strategically invaluable for Stage 1 road position.
‘Enduro-style’ prologue for the bikes
Quads were first on the prologue route, with France’s Gaëtan Martinez topping the timing sheets for CFMoto Thunder Racing. Martinez bested Poland’s Marek Łój on a Yamaha Raptor 700, by a mere second. Third-fastest of the quads was Martinez’s Lithuanian team-mate, Antanas Kanopkinas, with another Yamaha Raptor 700 rider and the only female competitor in the class, South Africa’s Carien Teessen, in fourth.
For W2RC RallyGP and Rally2 category bike competitors, the prologue was all about risk management. South African Safari Rally favourites were clear about the terrain’s technical challenge, with narrower bushveld being a lot more unforgiving for any off-piste excursions or corner overshoots, compared to the open desert conditions of several other W2RC events.
Current Dakar Rally champion and one of the event favourites, Australia’s Daniel Sanders (Red Bull Factory KTM Racing) was fastest overall, beating Spain’s Tosha Schareina (Monster Energy Honda HRC) by just over 4 seconds. Sanders noted the prologue’s technicality: “It was short and intense, like an enduro-style course. Once you’re in the dust, it will be very hard to pass on these bush tracks with all the trees. That’s going to influence strategy.”
South Africa’s Michael Docherty finished fastest of the Rally2 competitors and an impressive third overall, registering his sixth W2RC Rally2 class prologue win for the BAS World KTM Racing Team. Southern African lead RallyGP contenders, Ross Branch (Hero Motosports) and Bradley Cox (Sherco SHR 450), finished 9th and 11th overall respectively, in the prologue.
Argentina’s Luciano Benavides will be first on route during Stage 1, on his KTM, with Branch following three minutes later, then Spain’s Edgar Canet, also on a KTM, in third. Prologue winner, Sanders, is ideally positioned as the fourth starter for Stage 1.
Local domination in Car category despite penalties
There was drama and triumph for the South African contingent in the car category. Local bushveld racing skills and confidence in the tight technical terrain proved decisive in the car category. South Africa’s Saood Variawa and French navigator, Francois Cazalet, seemed to have completed a flawlessly fast prologue in their Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa (TGRSA) Hilux, leading the timesheets – but later suffered a one-minute penalty for a jumped start.
Gareth Woolridge and Boyd Dreyer, in their NWM Evo Plus, benefited from the TGRSA misfortune, being promoted from second to first place in the prologue. “We didn’t expect to be first. We know we have pace, but we thought the other teams would be very quick, too. I don’t feel too much pressure going into Stage 1 leading. Dust is going to be a major factor. It’s drier than people think, despite all the late-season rain. And teams are going to get punctures,” Woolridge said.
Guy Botterill and navigator Dennis Murphy in another TGRSA Hilux were second. “It was a very technical prologue, despite being only 9 km,” Botterill said. “Teams were working really hard in the cars, and I think everyone made mistakes and overshot somewhere.”
Henk Lategan and navigator Brett Cummings haven’t been in a Hilux’s cockpit since the Dakar in January, but their familiarity with the North West’s off-road terrain and proven speed prevailed. The pair were third-fastest on their first outing for the European-based Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) team, creating a clean sweep of South African drivers and locally-built vehicles for the prologue’s top three positions.
Like most South African Safari Rally frontrunners, Lategan found the conditions challenging. “It was tight with tricky navigation, and I had a small overshoot at the beginning. The grip is so low when you are at the front. It was a lesson for the next stages about choosing between slippery conditions if you’re too far at the front and the dust issue if you are too far back. With so little wind around to settle it, the dust was really hanging,” he said.
Dakar and WRC legends find it slippery going
One of the clear South African Safari Rally favourites and current W2RC championship leaders, Qatar’s Nasser Al Attiyah and French navigator, Edouard Boulanger (Dacia Sandriders), had to settle for 12th on the prologue. “We opened the prologue, and it was very slippery. We could not make a good time. Tomorrow, we have a good road position, because we have good speed and we want to push ahead on the marathon days.”
French World Rally Championship (WRC) legend and multiple Dakar Rally podium finisher, Sébastien Loeb, struggled on the opening competitive section of the SA Safari Rally – despite being predicted by TGRSA’s Variawa to be a significant threat in the fast, tight stages. The French nine-time WRC champion and his Belgian navigator, Fabian Lurquin, classified down in 51st in the second Dacia Sandriders entry. “It was very challenging with the junctions. We missed some, which lost us time. The terrain is quite tricky with so little grip in places, especially when braking on the grass bits,” he said.
A consequence of their poor prologue is that Loeb/Lurquin will sweep the route for their rivals. As the first car on Stage 1, they will have to contend with 260 km of the conditions that bedevilled their prologue effort. TGRSA’s Variawa and Cazalet will be second starters on Stage 1 and keen to put the disappointment of a lost prologue win behind them.
The top three prologue finishers had the best start position selections during the draw – ideally not too far behind the first few cars to suffer from dust blindness, but with the benefit of better grip, on a route swept and compacted by their rivals. That means Lategan/Cummings start sixth, prologue winners Woolridge/Dreyer set off in seventh, and Botterill/ Murphy get onto the route in eighth. W2RC championship leaders Al Attiyah/Boulanger will only start in 27th position.
Stage 1 of the South African Safari Rally will route competitors for a testing 260 km special, exploring the Lichtenburg area, known for its maize farms and bushveld. Winds are predicted to reach 26 km/h by midday, which should help dissipate the dust later on. Teams can expect high-speed dual-tracks mixed with tight sandy sections, testing the coordination between momentum, traction, and accurate navigation execution.
