The first week of the 2026 Dakar Rally that started on Saturday, 3 January in Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, has seen various South African competitors flying the flag high in the Car Category. The Dakar Rally, regarded as the toughest motorsport event in the world and takes place for the 48th time – the seventh time in Saudi Arabia – stretches over two weeks and almost 8 000 kilometres and reached the halfway mark and Rest Day in Riyadh after completion of a Prologue and six stages that also included the first of two Marathon Stages where no overnight assistance is allowed.
SA competitors are widely scattered in the Toyota Gazoo Racing SA, TGR W2RC teams, the SA Century Racing outfit and the locally manufactured vehicles under the Red-Lined Motorsport and WCT Engineering banners with the SA flag again a prominent feature at this event.
Looking back, multiple punctures and flat tyres plagued the first three stages with many crews losing valuable time due to complications as a result – be it mechanical issues, losing road position or having to wait for team-mates in the hope of receiving an unused spare wheel.
Add these factors to the route conditions of the first four stages that predominantly consisted of treacherous rocky sections before the first all dune stage that concluded the first week as well as the major role dust played. It also became clear from the start that more than one manufacturer stands a chance of winning as the first six stages were won by no less than four different manufacturers – Toyota, Ford, Mini and Dacia.
It was the former multiple SA champions of Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings, competing in the colours of TGR W2RC who first stepped into the limelight having to open the road of the first stage in their Hilux. This is not an ideal situation, but they nevertheless opened their scorecard with a 17th place overall. And despite experiencing nine punctures during the first three stages that left them confused as to the reasons why, they climbed the ladder to win Stage Four by a healthy margin. Their solace, a nights rest and ration packs at the Marathon Refuge Bivouac, as the new race leaders and a fifth Dakar Rally stage win for Lategan.
It also meant that after a stage, where no service or mechanical crew waited at the finish to do the necessary repairs, the team had to open the road the following day which is never an easy task. And although they finished 16th and lost some time, they kept their overall lead followed by the five-time Dakar Rally winner, Nasser Al-Attiya (Dacia).
Stage Six, however, belonged to the experienced dune driver (Al-Attiya) with the Dacia team claiming their first victory of 2026 – and Al-Attiya’s 49th stage victory – to reach the Rest Day as the new overall leaders with Lategan/Cummings, dropping to second place, trailing them by six minutes and 10 seconds.
For the TGR South Africa / SVR Toyota Hilux team, it was pretty much a yo-yo effect for the newly crowned SA Rally-Raid Champion, Saood Variawa and his French navigator, Francois Cazalet as well as for Guy Botterill and his Spanish navigator, Oriol Mena.
After completing the first stage in 13th place, Variawa/Cazalet worked their way up into the overall top 10 from the second stage and were seventh after Stage Four, but a 19th place on the first section of the Marathon Stage saw them dropping to 12th overall despite having to manage their fuel towards the end of Stage Six, they will take on the second week from just outside the top 10 in 11th place. It is Variawa’s third Dakar Rally, the 20-year old completed both previous races including winning a stage during the 2025 event.
Issues with the jack for Botterill/Mena saw them losing valuable time on Stage Two after they completed the first stage in an impressive sixth place overall. They showed their mettle to complete Stage Three on the third step of the podium that elevated them from 25th to 17th overall, but complicated navigation and a time penalty saw them finishing 36th on the following stage. This dropped them to 22nd position in the overall rankings.
The team took the bull by the horns to claim the ninth place in both stages five and six and rounded the first week off in 17th position overall. It is Botterill’s third Dakar Rally with the multiple SA Rally Champion finishing sixth in 2024.
With just less than 27 minutes covering the top 10 and not even 10 minutes the difference between the leaders and third-placed Nani Roma/Alex Haro (Ford), the race is still wide open. Add to that the fact that there are three more Ford Raptors, of which two have claimed stage wins this year, in the top seven while two more Dacia teams are also still in the top 10 and the stage is set for an extremely interesting battle to the end.
In the Century Racing camp, Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer (CR7) also had their ups and downs that included punctured tyres – and having to wait for team-mates to assist with a tyre – as well as some minor technical glitches and tricky navigation. Baragwanath/Cremer are 21st overall and trail the leaders by an hour and 13 minutes. Their CR team-mates, the French duo of Mathieu Serradori/Loïc Minaudier are one of the four manufacturers in the top 10 and ended the first week in eighth place, 23 and a half minutes down on the leaders.
Red-Lined Motorsport have two customer teams with the Revo T1+ in the hands of the Koloc family. Aliyyah Koloc (21) and navigator Marcin Pasek and her father, Martin and Mirko Brun both overcame what the Dakar had to throw at them and are currently 48th and 51st in the class.
The German father and son teams of Jürgen Schröder, who has Stuart Gregory reading him the notes and Daniel, who had Henry Köhne with him in the two WCT built VW Amarok vehicles, with both teams enduring a troublesome first week. In an unfortunate accident, Daniel and Köhne hit a metal drum on the route just after the start of the first stage that saw them rolling their vehicle. The team was unscathed but could not continue.
Schröder Snr. and Gregory are marching on despite a late night in the desert and various challenges.
In the Challenger Category, the Stellenbosch student, Puck Klaassen, became the fifth ever female competitor to win a stage on the Dakar when she and her Argentine navigator, Augusto Sanz, won the class after Stage Three with their KTM X-Bow. They are currently sixth in the class.
The multiple SA navigator champion, Dennis Murphy, is toughing it out in the seat of an SSV next to the American, Lawrence Janesky. They are 21st in the class. Leander Pienaar, who navigated for Abdullah Al Fahad (Can-Am) crashed in the fourth stage and could unfortunately not continue.
Seven days and gruelling stages now await competitors before the 2026 Dakar Rally ends in Yanbu on Saturday, 17 January.
Published by: Charmaine Fortune
Motorsport South Africa (MSA) publishes media releases from a variety of sources on its website as a service to the sport. Due to the volume of content, it is not feasible to review or approve every release prior to publication. Some news items and articles are written by independent correspondents and may not necessarily reflect the official views or positions of MSA.