The Toyota Gazoo Racing driver, Guy Botterill, has extended his lead in the 2026 SA Rally-Raid Championship after claiming his second consecutive victory together with navigator, Henry Köhne. Botterill and Köhne won the recent Century Property Developments – Century Racing Outeniqua 400, the third round of the SARRC that took place in the Garden Route in the Western Cape.
Botterill started the season with Spanish navigator, Oriol Mena Valdearcos, reading him the notes, but acquired the services of Köhne for the following two rounds and with the duo winning rounds two and three, Botterill has accumulated a total of 90 points while Köhne has moved to the front of the overall navigators’ championship with a total of 75 points.
Behind Botterill, Gareth Woolridge (Castrol NWM Ford Rally-Raid) jumped from third to second place in the overall driver standings (72 points) while Giniel de Villiers (#TeamHilux Rally-Raid) who recently finished second in the Western Cape, moved from fifth to third place, trailing Woolridge by 15 points. After winning the season opener, Botterill’s team-mate, Saood Variawa, could not complete the Outeniqua event accompanied by Charan Moore, and the defending champion dropped from second to fourth place on the overall standings (54 points).
Jayden Els and navigator Johann Swemmer (Century Racing Factory Team CR7) made a good start to the season, but could also not complete an extremely testing event in the Cape resulting in Els dropping one place to fifth (47 points).
Looking at the top five in the overall navigator standings, Woolridge’s navigator, Boyd Dreyer (72 points) kept his second place and trails Köhne by a mere three points while a total of 57 points moved De Villiers’s navigator, Dennis Murphy onto the podium. Moore was leading the standings before the third race, but has now dropped to fourth (54 points) while Swemmer rounds out the top five with 47 points.
The final results of a tough third round saw some shuffling in the various class championships where competitors are awarded points for completed stages. In Ultimate FIA T1+, Botterill has confirmed his lead and his 129 points place him 18 points ahead of Woolridge (111 points) who moved to second place while De Villiers (98 points) jumped from fifth to third. Variawa dropped to fourth (87 points) and Els is still fifth (80 points) with the rest somewhat further back.
Finishing the first two events of the season including claiming a podium ensured Sa’aad Variawa (TGR Toyota Hilux IMT EVO) the sixth place (68 points), only three points ahead of Danie Ludick (Castrol NWM Ford Rally-Raid) who finished the Outeniqua event together with navigator Denzil Williamson in fourth place overall although the team could not complete the season opener.
It was also an up and down start to the season for Fouche and his brother, Bertus Blignaut (#TeamHilux Rally-Raid) who only scored points after the second round. Fouche is currently the eighth driver in the class (47 points) followed by Wors Prinsloo (Castrol NWM Ford Rally-Raid) with 36 points and his team-mate, newcomer Michael Lawlor (34 points) who rounds off the top 10.
Drivers making use of different navigators resulted in Woolridge’s regular navigator, Dreyer, to move to the top of the leaderboard. His 111 points are only nine more than Köhne who fast-tracked from sixth to second place (102 points) with Murphy rounding off the podium (98 points). Moore dropped to fourth place (87 points), seven points ahead of Swemmer (80 points) with Wade Harris, who sat next to Sa’aad Variawa for the first two events of the season, in sixth (65 points) albeit with the same number of points than Williamson. Prinsloo’s regular navigator, Andre Vermeulen, who scored points reading the notes to Lance Woolridge in his absence in the Cape, is eighth (57 points); Bertus Blignaut is ninth (47 points) and Lawlor’s son and navigator, Luke, is 10th (34 points).
The lead in Ultimate SA T1+ has also changed and after finishing second in class in the Western Cape, Johan and Sean van Staden (Red-Lined Motorsport) overtook their team-mates, Philip Botha/Andries Mynhardt. The Van Staden family have 119 points, only two points more than Botha/Mynhardt who dropped to second place with a class win for the German driver, Jürgen Schröder and navigator Rikus Fourie (WCT VW Amarok), moving them from fifth to third place (81 points).
Abrie and Iaan Olivier (VAPS HCV Rally-Raid Team) missed the third round and dropped to fourth place (58 points) followed by Lood du Preez/Adriaan Roets (Farmers Meat Century CR6), who led after the opening round, but could not complete the following two events. They have 51 points.
The standings in the Adventurer Class remained the same despite a first victory for Nielen Marx/Rikus Hattingh (Ford Ranger) at the Outeniqua 400. The team are still second (79 points), with the winners of the first two events, Peet Victor/VanZyl Jonck (VAPS HCV Rally-Raid Team) leading after earning a total of 96 points despite not being able to finish the third round.
Tyler Botha/Kyle Lotter (VAPS HCV Rally-Raid) only competed in the first two races and are still third (42 points) albeit having earned the same points as Tokkie Ferreira/Nardus Janse van Rensburg (Ford) who could also not complete the event. Jan Rose/Arno Olivier are fifth (15 points).
Various driver and navigator combinations as well as class changes resulted in Geoff Minnitt (66 points) and Leander Pienaar (42 points) (Hydro Power Equipment) leading the Challenger standings followed by Schalk Burger/Armand du Toit (Ford Ranger) with 38 points. Henk Klaassen (DaklaPack Rally-Sport Rally-Raid) is third in the driver standings (28 points) with Mark Corbett (Century Racing CRX) fourth (21 points) after competing for the first time this season and finishing the Century Property Developments – Century Racing sponsored event in the Garden Route together with his son, Max.
In the Challenger Navigator championship, Rodney Burke, who sat next to Minnitt for the first event, is third (24 points) with Henk’s brother, Pim, fourth (22 points) and Max fifth (21 points).
Werner Mostert and his son, Ian (Moto-Netix Racing) having competed in their first SARRC event this year lead the SxS standings (21 points).
The fourth and penultimate round of the 2026 SARRC, the VAPS HCV Vryheid 400 takes place on 9 and 10 October from Vryheid airfield in KZN.
BOTHA – LOTTER credit DAVE LEDBITTER 
BOTHA – MYNHARDT credit WALDO v.d. WAAL 
BOTTERILL – KOHNE credit WALDO v.d. WAAL 
BURGER – DU TOIT credit DAVE LEDBITTER 
DE VILLIERS- MURPHY credit WALDO v.d. WAAL 
JOHAN & SEAM VAN STADEN credit WALDO v.d. WAAL 
MARK & MAX CORBETT credit ANDRE SCHOEMAN 
MARX – HATTINGH crdit DAVE LEDBITTER 
MINNITT – PIENAAR credit ANDRE SCHOEMAN 
SHCRODER -FOURIE credit WALDO v.d. WAAL 
VICTOR – JONCK credit WALDO v.d. WAAL 
WERNER & IAN MOSTERT credit ANDRE SCHOEMAN 
WOOLRIDGE – DREYER credit WALDO v.d. WAAL
Published by: Charmaine Fortune
Photography by Dave Ledbitter and Waldo van der Waal
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