South African cars and drivers are once again set to feature in the 2026 Dakar Rally, which starts on January 3 in Saudi Arabia.
South Africans Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings will lead a three-car team of new Glyn Hall-developed Overdrive Gazoo Toyota Hiluxes built in Belgium — not to be confused with the Kyalami-built Hilux IMT Evo Gazoo machines.
This year’s South African off-road racing champion Saood Variawa and French navigator Francois Cazalet, and Guy Botterill and Spaniard Oriol Mena, continue with the Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa Hilux IMT Evo. The four-car Gazoo line-up also includes crews from Spain, Portugal and South America.
Other top local car crews include Brian Baragwanath and Leonard Cremer’s SA Century Factory C7R, and a pair of Kyalami-built WCT Amaroks campaigned by German-South African father and son, Jürgen and Daniel Schröder, and Stuart Gregory and Henry Köhne.
South Africa’s Puck Klaassen and Argentine Augusto Sanz should be a factor in the T3 Challenger class, while South African navigator Dennis Murphy will be reading in Lawrence Janesky’s Can-Am, and Leander Pienaar for Abdullah Al-Fahhad in the T4 Side by Sides. Another South African, Grant Ballington navigates in Tomas Tomecek’s Tatra and Angolan Paulo Oliveira is with Alberto Herrero in a Scania in the Trucks.
Other Hiluxes to keep an eye on are 2025 winners, Saudi home hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk, Portuguese crew João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro, and Frenchmen Ronan Chabot and Gilles Pillot. Nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb will be looking for his first Dakar win on his ninth attempt alongside Édouard Boulanger in their Dacia Sandrider.
They will first need to beat Dacia teammates, five-time winner Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah and Fabian Lurquin, Brazilian Lucas Moraes and Dennis Zenz and Spaniards Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno.
Ford is another major Dakar 2026 factor with legendary Spanish four-time winner Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz, former car and bike winner Nani Roma and Álex Haro, German Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist, and US crew Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch in a four-Raptor factory line-up. They’re backed by Czech crew Martin Prokop and Viktor Chytka and Kyrgyzstani duo Denis Krotov and Konstantin Zhiltsov in two privateer Raptors.
Mini is back with Belgian Guillaume de Mevius and Mathieu Baumel, French couple Lionel and Lucie Baud, and Portugal’s Maria Gameiro and Rosa Romero among the John Cooper Works entries.
The new Dakar Stock class has attracted “Mr Dakar” Stéphane Peterhansel and Michaël Metge, Lithuanian Rokas Baciuška and Sara Price’s Land Rover Defenders to take on Miura Akira and Ronald Basso’s Toyota Land Cruiser 300 GR Sports and Majeed Al-Thunyyan in a Nissan Patrol.
Four South Africans are contesting the motorcycle class: Bradley Cox in the top Rally GP Elite class, and Michael Docherty, Anthony Raynard and Ronald Venter riding in Rally 2. They will be up against the strong Red Bull KTM 450 Rally team with 2025 Dakar winner, Australian Daniel Sanders
With 5,000km of racing on a total route of 8,000km, Dakar 2026 starts in Yanbu on January 3 and finishes there on January 17.
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