After a successful 2024 season in the South African Rally-Raid Championship (SARRC), Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa (TGRSA) is set to compete in the Dakar Rally in January 2025. The team will field four crews, each driving the GR Hilux IMT Evo model, which secured the 2024 SARRC title under drivers Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings.

The TGRSA line-up includes three returning driver-navigator pairs and one reconfigured crew. Leading the team are Lategan and Cummings in car #211. They will aim to carry their momentum into the Dakar.

Also joining the team are Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy in car #205. Botterill and Murphy showed consistent performance during the SARRC season and aim to make an impact at the Dakar Rally.

Saood Variawa, age 19, and co-driver Francois Cazalet, will return in car #218. After a promising season in the SARRC, Variawa is positioned to be one of the youngest competitors at Dakar 2025.

Completing the team are Dakar veteran Giniel de Villiers and his former co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz in car #206. De Villiers and Von Zitzewitz, who won the Dakar together in 2009, will reunite for this year’s event. De Villiers’ usual navigator Elvéne Vonk will not participate in this pairing as the team opted for the experience De Villiers and Von Zitzewitz bring as a past winning team.

The locally built and developed GR Hilux IMT Evo has been refined to handle the demands of the Dakar Rally, after its strong performance in the 2024 SARRC season. TGRSA said it sees the event as an opportunity to demonstrate Toyota’s engineering capabilities and commitment to endurance racing to a global audience.