Just ten days to go until the first timed start of the South African Safari Rally, which will pit the field against 2,645 km of savannah racing (1,218 km of specials) around Sun City, north-west of Johannesburg, from 18 to 24 May.
There are 96 entries. 29 of the 54 FIA vehicles are W2RC competitors (17 in Ultimate, 7 in Challenger and 5 in SSV). All 42 FIM vehicles are registered for the W2RC (9 in Rally GP, 29 in Rally 2 and 4 in quads).
Every single championship leader is travelling to South Africa for the third round. On the FIA front, Nasser Al Attiyah (The Dacia Sandriders) leads the Ultimate class, Nicolás Cavigliasso (BBR Motorsport) tops the Challenger board and Alexandre Pinto (Old Friends Rally) is perched at the summit of the SSV ranking. On the FIM front, Daniel Sanders (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) is in command in Rally GP, Tobias Ebster (Hero MotoSports) holds the top spot in Rally 2 and Antanas Kanopkinas (CFMoto Thunder Racing) is the front-runner in the quad competition.
The car race will see the return of titans of the calibre of Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma (Ford M-Sport) and the homegrown talent Henk Lategan (Toyota Gazoo Racing). Meanwhile, Bradley Cox (Sherco TVS Rally Factory) and Tobias Ebster (Hero MotoSports) are set to make their first appearance as works riders in the motorbike race.Click here to discover the FIA entry list, and here for the FIM entry list.
FIA: NO PLACE LIKE HOME FOR TOYOTA
As in the previous round, the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge, Dacia, Mini and Ford will field two crews each. Nasser Al Attiyah (96 points) and Sébastien Loeb (10 points) will pursue contrasting objectives: the Lion King from Qatar wants to consolidate his position as the top cat, whereas the French driver is eager to end a drought stretching back to the 2022 season finale. João Ferreira (39 points) and Guillaume de Mévius (18 points) will be back behind the wheels of their X-raid Minis. The American manufacturer is switching crews in and out between one round and the next. This time round, the Raptors will take flight with Nani Roma (18 points) and Carlos Sainz (2 points). "El Matador", who made a premature exit from the Dakar with just a couple of points in the bag, is poised to step back into the W2RC arena and make his first foray into the African savannah. On the flip side, this terrain holds no secrets for Henk Lategan, who is also returning to the series after tackling the Dakar in Saudi Arabia, where he came in second last January. The South African, fifth overall at 41 points from the leader, is the favourite to win this round. Lategan and his team will have the home advantage on a route designed by the organiser of the South African Rally-Raid Championship (SARRC), in which he is the reigning champion with Toyota. Saood Variawa, who became the youngest Dakar stage winner last January at the tender age of 19, will be another national championship entrant driving a Hilux in this round.
Yazeed Al Rajhi (Overdrive Racing), who prevailed in the Dakar and sits in second place overall, 23 points down, will have to sit this one out while he recovers from a spinal injury sustained during a race in April. Even so, Toyota remain the greatest threat to Al Attiyah (see Did you know?). The two TGR factory drivers, Lucas Moraes and Seth Quintero, stand third (33 points down) and fourth (36 points down) overall, respectively. The Qatari has no room for error in this round, where a DNF would be a gift to the Hilux trident consisting of Moraes, Quintero and Lategan.
BBR Motorsport make up half of the field in the Challenger class. Their three drivers are the top-ranked entrants in this round, with Nicolás Cavigliasso (104 points), Pau Navarro (93 points) and Dania Akeel (73 points). The internecine war within the French squad is heating up. In SSV, the top 4 overall is expected to take the start: Alexandre Pinto (131 points), Enrico Gaspari (MMP — 120 points), Michele Cinotto (CST Xtreme Plus Polaris — 66 points) and the old rocker Claude Fournier (MMP — 55 points).
FIM: FROM THE BUSH TO THE SAVANNAH
It is hard to look past Daniel Sanders (63 points), undefeated in RallyGP so far this season, as the favourite in the African savannah —not just because of his blistering form, but also because the terrain is not that far removed from the Australian bush where he grew up. Untouchable in the first two rounds (see Did you know?), "Chucky" will again be flying with his wingman Luciano Benavides (33 points) at his side. The two orange works riders will once again face a numerically superior red squadron. Monster Energy Honda HRC are fielding four riders, including the three men hot on the heels of the overall leader: Tosha Schareina (46 points), Ricky Brabec (37 points) and Adrien Van Beveren (35 points).
The reigning world champion, Ross Branch (Hero MotoSports), was a DNF in both of the previous rounds. The "Kalahari Ferrari", who comes from across the border in Botswana, has three South African cross-country titles in his trophy cabinet and will be racing almost on home soil, hoping to put this series of unfortunate events behind him. Nacho Cornejo will be escorting him.
The FIM entry list reflects a couple of eye-catching transfers, with two competitors graduating to factory rider status, one in RallyGP and the other in Rally2. Bradley Cox will be the only homegrown talent in the RallyGP race. Instead of a KTM, the mount on which his father, Alfie Cox, became a legend of rally raids, he will be riding a Sherco factory motorbike. Bradley Cox, who has been competing in the W2RC since 2022, has achieved his second goal. After clinching the Rally2 title in 2024, the former BAS World KTM Racing man, who graduated to RallyGP this season, has accomplished a well-deserved breakthrough with the French outfit.
Tobias Ebster, nephew to another KTM all-time great, Heinz Kinigadner, has landed a factory spot with Hero MotoSports in Rally2. The Austrian, who tops the board in this class (46 points), will have to break in the new motorbike and fend off the assaults of his closest rival, his former teammate Michael Docherty (42 points), who will be racing in his own backyard. The KTM factory rider Edgar Canet (38 points) is back following his crash in Abu Dhabi. Konrad Dąbrowski (34 points), who usually races for Duust Rally, will compete in this round under the aegis of BAS World KTM Racing. All in all, with Harith Noah at Sherco, Canet at KTM and now Ebster at Hero, there will be three factory riders in the Rally 2 ranking of round 3. It is a record since the 2022 launch of the W2RC, which set up this class as a development pipeline for motorbike riders, an idea that has paid off big time.
Meanwhile, the quad race faces the second round of the season, after the opener in the dunes of Abu Dhabi. The championship top 3 has heeded the call of the savannah. Antanas Kanopkinas (25 points) and his CFMoto teammate Gaëtan Martinez (20 points) have thrown their hats into the ring, as has Marek Łoj (Poland National Team — 16 points). The local hero Carien Teessen is set to make her championship debut.
DID YOU KNOW?
FIA: Almost two thirds of Ultimate cars "Proudly South African"
10 out of 17 Ultimate cars in the field have been designed and built in South Africa. The 7 GR DKR Hilux Evo entries make up half of this contingent, with the rest consisting of Mathieu Serradori (SRT) in his Century Racing CR7-T, Dave Klaassen (Daklapack Rallysport) in his Red-Lined Revo and Daniel Schröder (PS Laser Racing) in his VW WCT Amarock. The slogan "Proudly South African", proclaimed loudly to support the local economy by purchasing or shining a spotlight on South African production, will take pride of place!FIM: 2-win record at risk
No RallyGP rider has managed to win more than 2 W2RC rounds in the course of a single season. Sam Sunderland, who bagged the world championship title in 2022, claimed the first two legs but finished no higher than fifth in his two other entries. Daniel Sanders will have three opportunities to forge ahead of "Sundersam" and become the sole record holder. Pulling off this feat in South Africa would be the icing on the cake for the man from Down Under, as that would also make him the first RallyGP rider to win three races on the trot.
SCHEDULE:
- 17–18 May: administrative and technical scrutineering
- 19 May: prologue — Sun City (road section: 26 km / special: 9 km / Total: 35 km)
- 20 May: stage 1 — Sun City–Sun City (road section: 295 km / special: 262 km / total: 557 km) - 21 May: stage 2 — Sun City–Marathon Camp (road section: 268 km / special: 352 km / total: 620 km)
- 22 May: stage 3 — Marathon Camp–Sun City (road section: 270 km / special: 253 km / total: 523 km)
- 23 May: stage 4 — Sun City–Sun City (road section: 470 km / special: 224 km / total: 693 km)
- 24 May: stage 5 — Sun City–Sun City (road section: 98 km / special: 118 km / total: 216 km)
