With three months to go before the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) hosts its first event in South Africa, the highly anticipated South African Safari Rally has already attracted an exceptionally high calibre of entries in the car category.
The South African Safari Rally, brought to you by Toyota Gazoo Racing, takes place from 18 to 24 May 2025, and forms round three of this year’s extremely competitive W2RC season. It follows January’s action-packed Dakar Rally and the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge that runs from 21-27 February.
“We are delighted with the number and calibre of competitors that submitted their entries by the closing date of the early bird entries on 14 February,” said Archie Rutherford, CEO of the South African Safari Rally. “We’ve had a fantastic response and great interest from around the world for this new addition to the World Rally-Raid Championship calendar, and our team is hard at work ensuring that we deliver a truly world-class event for the competitors, media and spectators.”
Headlining the entries received in the Ultimate (T1+) car category is Qatari star Nasser Al-Attiyah and French co-driver Edouard Boulanger from The Dacia Sandriders team. Al-Attiyah is not only the reigning W2RC champion, but has won all three titles since this premier international rally-raid championship debuted in 2022. This is backed up by no less than five FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies titles, as well as five Dakar Rally wins.
Al-Attiyah/Boulanger finished fourth overall at this year’s Dakar, and will be joined by Dacia Sandriders team-mates Sebastian Loeb (France) and co-driver Fabian Lurguin (Belgium). Loeb is a nine-time World Rally champion, has finished on the Dakar Rally podium five times, and earned the W2RC runner-up position in 2022, making him another formidable competitor.
While Toyota Gazoo Racing is yet to confirm its entries, there’s no doubt that it will field a formidable line-up of international and South African drivers and co-drivers – many of which starred in this year’s Dakar Rally.
They will be joined by the X-Raid MINI JCW crews of Portuguese duo Joao Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro, and the second car of Denos Krotov (Kyrgyzstan) and Konstantin Zhiltsov (Israel).
Having earned impressive third and fifth-place finishes overall on its first outing with its Ford Raptor at this year’s Dakar Rally, the Ford M-Sport team has submitted two entries for the South African Safari Rally, but its driver and co-driver pairings have yet to be named.
Martin Prokop and Victor Chytka (Czech Republic) are stalwarts of the rally-raid scene and will also be in action in South Africa in their Ford Raptor RS Cross Country.
With South African designed and produced rally-raid vehicles accounting for more than half of the Dakar Rally field, five-time Brazilian Cross Country champions and multiple Dakar Rally competitors Marcos Baumgart and Kleber Cincea will be competing in the locally built Neil Woolridge Motorsport Ford Ranger Evo Plus. Three South African produced Century Racing cars have been entered thus far, comprising the two French teams of Dakar stage winners Mathieu Serradori and Loic Minaudier in the CR-7T and Benoit Frentin and Cedric Duple in a CR6, along with Rik van den Brink and Gydo Heimans (Netherlands) in another CR-7T.
Red-Lined Motorsport, also from South Africa, has an impressive line-up of six teams eager to go racing in the South African Safari Rally. Four competitors will be in the Red-Lined Revo, comprising Rients Hofstra (Netherlands) and South African co-driver Wade Harris, and the all-local crews of Philip Botha/Roelof Janse van Vuren, Danie Ludick/Denzil Williamson and Jayden Els/Johan Swemmer. There will be two local crews in the Red-Lined VK56 entries, comprising Gerhardt and Rudi Heinlein, and Nickus Heinlein/Ferdie Kriel.
There will also be two South African-built WCT VW Amaroks, comprising Daniel Schröder (Germany) and Henri Köhne (South Africa) who are competing in the full W2RC season this year. They will be supported in the local event by Schröder’s father Jürgen in the second WCT Amarok (co-driver still to be confirmed).
They will be joined by the father and son team of Johan and Sean van Staden in the KEC Racing Renault Duster.
Challenger
The early bird entries in the Challenger class are no less impressive. The Red Bull Junior Team has confirmed three of its six BBR Taurus T3 Max entries thus far, with 2025 Dakar Rally winners Nicolas Cavigliasso and Valentina Pertegari (Argentina) being the star act. They will be joined by third-place Dakar finishers Pau Navarro (Spain) and Lisandro Sisterna (Argentina), along with Corbin Leaverton (USA) and co-driver Taye Perry (South Africa).
Competing against the Red Bull squad will be the two Portuguese X-Raid YXZ1000R crews of Pedro Gonçalves and Hugo Magalhäes, along with Khalid Aljafla (UAE) and Andrei Rudnitski (Belarus) in a Taurus T3 Max.
They will be going up against three G Rally Team entrants comprising the South African-based crew of Puck Klaassen and former Original by Motul Dakar bike winner Charan Moore in the co-driver’s seat, the Belgian team of Grégoire de Mévius/André Leyh, and Nicolas Delencre/Jonathan Lurquin in the G-Ecko.
SSV
The Side-by-Side Vehicles (SSVs) category already has six early bird entrants, with a trio of Polaris Pro R machines including the Italian crew of Michele Cinotto and co-driver Alberto Bertoldi, the British team of Graham Knight and David Watson, and George Halles (UK) and French co-driver Max Delfino.
With numerous other top-ranking teams still expected to submit their entries in the Ultimate, Challenger and SSV categories following the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, rally-raid enthusiasts can look forward to plenty of action and excitement when the W2RC fraternity heads to South Africa in May.
