2025 Dakar Rally: Toyota revels in another Dakar Rally Victory

The 2025 Dakar Rally brought not only victory for Toyota, but also a second place overall for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing’s Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings #211.

The works GR Hilux EVO crew led the race overall for 9 stages, but eventually lost out to Yazeed Al Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk in their Toyota Hilux by just 3min 57sec after two weeks of racing across the Saudi Arabian landscape.

For Saudi Arabia’s Al Rajhi, it was a dream come true to win the Dakar Rally on home soil, and the man from Riyadh now also leads the 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) standings, as the Dakar Rally is Round 1 of this championship.

With the Dakar Rally done and dusted, Al Rajhi is on 70 points in the W2RC, with his nearest rival, Henk Lategan, on 55 points. Toyota leads the W2RC manufacturer standings after the opening round, with 34 points buffer to the team in second place.

Lategan/Cummings made no secret of their title aspirations when they won the Prologue for the Dakar Rally back in Bisha, before taking the overall lead of the event on Stage 2. They held onto the lead for eight straight stages, before briefly relinquishing it to Al Rajhi for one stage. The South African duo regained the lead on the next stage, but this put them at a disadvantage in terms of road position for the penultimate and deciding stage. In the end, they settled for second place, giving Toyota a coveted 1-2 finish at the world’s toughest rally-raid event.

Californian Seth Quintero and his German co-driver Dennis Zenz (#204) were the next-fastest TGR crew on today’s stage. The pair drove a steady race and overcame various challenges to bring their GR Hilux EVO home in 9th place, just 2h 20min 4sec behind the winners. Were it not for a tire disaster in Stage 4, the young American may well have finished much higher up the order. Still, he leaves the Dakar Rally with a Top 10 finish, two stage wins, as well as 28 points towards the W2RC.

Lucas Moraes and co-driver Armand Monleon (#203) started their Dakar 2025 campaign in fine form, pushing for the lead in the early stages of the rally. However, a technical problem with one of the dampers on their car cost the pair significant time during Stage 6 and they were on the back foot from that point forward. A time penalty dropped them down the order and out of contention, but the Brazilian driver and his Spanish co-driver continued to fight for stage wins.

Their tenacity was rewarded when they not only bounced back to win Stage 7 of the rally, but repeated the feat on the closing stage of the event. With two stage wins to their credit, they are on 18 points in the W2RC standings, and recorded a 15th place overall at the Dakar Rally.

The final finisher for TGR was young South African, Saood Variawa, and his French co-driver Francois Cazalet. Variawa became the youngest stage winner in the Ultimate Class when he won Stage 3 of the event, but a collision in Stage 2, as well as a technical issue later in the event, cost him dearly. He was classified in 29th place, 9h 29min 56sec behind the leaders. Even so, he garnered 13 points towards his W2RC campaign, and will be looking to improve on this at Round 2 of the championship.

Two TGR crews were unable to complete the 2025 Dakar Rally. The first to retire was the veteran duo of Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz, who had to stop racing after Stage 6, when Von Zitzewitz developed extreme neck pain min-stage. He was medically examined after the stage, and deemed unfit to continue, bringing a first Dakar retirement for De Villiers in a career that spanned 22 starts.

The second retirement was that of Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy, who had driven steady race up until Stage 9. They had lost several hours earlier in the race due to a damper problem, but suffered a crash in Stage 9 which put an end to their rally.

Overall, Toyota won all but four stages of the 12-stage event, as well as the Prologue in Bisha. Toyota also occupied four spots in the overall Top 10 at the finish, including first and second place. This was a power performance by the brand, underscoring the quality, durability and reliability for which the Toyota Hilux is famous. The team will continue to improve on the car, however, as part of Toyota’s ethos of creating ever-better cars not only for motorsport, but also for its customers.

Quotes

Henk Lategan: “It was a bittersweet race for us, to come all of this way, do two weeks of racing over thousands of kilometers, late nights, early mornings.. And then to miss out by four minutes! But to get onto the podium is fantastic. It’s our first podium and it’s a great achievement. It’s amazing what the team’s done and and what we could manage with this race. I’m proud of what we did. We’ll keep trying, we’ll keep pushing this year, we’ll improve the car, we’ll improve ourselves, we’ll gain more experience, and we’ll come back stronger next year.”

Seth Quintero: “I finally feel like I belong, which is the nice thing. After a year of winning here and there, but not being too consistent, to have this one super consistent race is fantastic. Some things that were out of the team’s hands and out of my hands cost us. The whole Toyota team did an amazing job the entire two weeks. I mean, we put in a lot of work the past couple of months, and it paid off for sure. Repsol joined the team this year and it was massive for us. I mean, renewable fuel is the way of the future, and it’s going to allow us to keep racing forever.”

Lucas Moraes: “Yeah, I mean, what can you say? We live and learn, we never lose, we always learn. That’s what we always said. And of course, the overall result was not the one we wanted. But just happy to finish, especially with the stage win. We won the last stage when everybody was pushing. So, it proves that we have the speed. It proves how good the car still is. And I hope we can come stronger next year.”

Saood Variawa: ” Yeah, it’s amazing. If I look back, last year was obviously the first year for us. This year was a lot tougher and I think the first week they [the organizers] wanted to break us. But the car was amazing. I’m really happy to finish my second Dakar on my second attempt.”

Andrea Carlucci, TGR Team Principal: “I think it was a wonderful race, first of all, probably the best ever Dakar I’ve seen since we are here in Saudi. Of course, for Toyota it’s just an amazing result, P1, P2, many podiums, many first, second, third positions. The car proves to be the winner in a way. A lot of honor, I would also say, to the contenders. They made it very good; it was a race until the very end, I think it was exciting. This is the spirit of motorsports. We couldn’t ask for more than this.”

Dakar Rally 2025 – Final Standings Car Category